Black Mask
by Ieyre
Summary: Christmas 1979—danger, secrets, lies and their shared history loom large over the Blacks' first Yuletide season as a reunited family. While life as a fugitive proves bleaker—and more boring—than Regulus could have imagined, a botched espionage mission at Malfoy Manor draws Sirius deeper into the Black family web. [Sequel to 'In the Black']
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

 ** _December 20th, 1979_**

It was past one when the two of them arrived at the entrance to the square. The windows of Grimmauld Place were dark, only a few dim street lamps lighting up the quiet row of old-fashioned Georgian town homes that lined the street. Though the inhabitants of the dark houses were all apparently safely asleep in bed, the driver of the black Suzuki motorcycle was taking no chances. He cut the engine and lights immediately.

"Probably better I drop you here," the rider whispered to his companion. "Safer."

His voice was muffled by an ungainly motorcycle helmet, which matched the black leather jacket and fingerless gloves that gripped the handles of the bike. By contrast, the girl riding pillion wore pale green robes that peaked out from underneath the silver clasp of her winter cloak.

The driver alighted from the bike swiftly and circled around to the sidecar. With great care, the man put his hands around her slim waist and gently lifted her up and onto the pavement. When he set her down on the cobbled street, his hands did not linger longer than necessary.

"How will I get back in?" she whispered.

"It's easy—" her companion told her. "'Round the back there's a drainpipe."

"A _drainpipe_?" she repeated, her French accent becoming more pronounced with her distaste.

"Well, you can't walk through the front door at this hour."

"What am I supposed to do, _climb it_? _Quelle folie."_

The motorcyclist only laughed.

"I'll show you, here—follow me."

He spoke with such easy confidence that it was impossible for the girl not to trust that he knew what he was doing—reckless though this entire venture had been. As he began his creeping approach to Number Eleven, she followed close at his heels—throwing occasional furtive looks around the square, lest they were discovered. It was when they were within ten feet of the house that its neighbor appeared visible to them.

"Unplottable," the man muttered, a knowing grin in his voice. "So the Muggles can't come by peddling leaflets. Up here on the side of the house, quick."

He lead her down a narrow gap between Number Eleven and Twelve, stopping when they reached the first large window of the latter. A long dining room table was just visible through the glass.

"There are security spells on the doors—but the windows should be alright." He jerked a thumb to the rusty drainpipe that hung over the side of the window—a Victorian relic. "You can shimmy up this to get back in your room."

"Have you—have you actually _done_ this before?"

"Plenty of times." She stared up the side of the house with trepidation. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you don't fall."

"Aren't you _forgetting_ something?" She put her hands on her hips, annoyed. "You are not going back on your word, _n'est-ce pas_?"

He laughed.

"No—I'm not going back on my word." Even beneath his helmet the man sounded amused, as if he was just about to let loose the punchline of a favorite joke. "I'll tell you. Just—try not to be _too_ angry with me."

"Why would I be angry?"

"Well, when I say my name, it'll be fairly ob—"

" _So—_ " A cold, hard voice rang out of the darkness behind them. _"—This_ is where you've been."

Hand underneath her foot, midway through boosting her up to the windowsill, the motorcyclist and the girl both froze.

A pinprick of light flickered in the darkness, revealing the figure of a tall and imposing woman—Mrs. Walburga Black, the mistress of the house the young couple were currently attempting to break into.

She blocked the only path of escape.

"Madame Black—" the girl started, but then the witch raised her lit wand, and the expression of incensed rage the younger woman saw choked the words straight out of her.

"We have enchantments set around the house," Mrs. Black informed her, icily. "To prevent people _coming_ and _going_ whenever they please."

"I swear, it's not what you think—I wasn't—"

"Gallivanting out in the middle of the night with filth?" the older woman finished for her, voice positively glacial. "Taking _advantage_ of our hospitality? Shaming yourself and your parents by having a liaison with— _this_?"

Mrs. Black did not even stoop to point at the man who was 'this'. The girl shivered in fear, and at once the taller figure unfroze and stepped in front of her, protectively.

If the look the witch was fixing the girl was one of anger, the one she leveled at motorcyclist was of utter and total contempt.

"Move out of the way," she ordered, derision dripping from every syllable.

The figure lifted up his hands in a placatory gesture—like that of a caught criminal or a person about to be attacked by a bear—but he did not move, or speak. Mrs. Black's eyes flashed with displeasure and she raised her wand.

"I told you to _move_ , you mudblood _scum_ —"

"—For your information," he interrupted, voice still muffled by the helmet. "I have it on good authority I have the _finest pedigree_ of any wizard in this country."

The young witch goggled at her companion, fully expecting him to be cursed on the spot for that _insanely_ insolent remark—but to her surprise, Mrs. Black did not unleash the spell that had been on her lips only moments before.

She stared for five full seconds at the stranger man before she spoke.

"What—what is covering your face?" Mrs. Black asked, still angry but also—baffled.

"A helmet," he answered, equally stupid.

Shock turned to understanding turned to rage in a moment.

"Remove it."

Still holding his hands up like he'd been cornered by the police, the man made no move to do so.

"Now, I don't think I—"

"—Take that _thing_ off, this _instant_!"

Her imperious voice brooked no argument.

The man slowly lowered his arms and undid the chin strap, fingers fumbling with the clasp. Hands trembling, he pulled the helmet off his head and tossed it on the pavement—at last revealing his face.

It was young and rather handsome—he shook out his dark hair and leveled the witch across the alley with a daringly formidable look, still hovering in front of the girl like a human shield.

She stared back—utterly unsurprised by what she found, her face frozen in an icy grimace, more terrifying than the blind rage of a moment earlier.

"Get in the house, girl," Walburga Black said, quietly. "At once."

"But—"

"Just—do as she says," the young man agreed. His voice had lost its swagger. "It's easier, trust me."

The girl looked helplessly from her chaperone to her partner-in-crime, despair evident. He offered her the tiniest smile of comfort—an 'it'll be alright' look—and she returned it timidly. Still distraught, the witch obeyed her chaperone, hurrying past him, around the corner and up the steps and into Number Twelve.

The door banged shut behind her, leaving them in darkness once more.

He turned back to face Walburga. Mrs. Black remained frozen—she had not taken her eyes off of him _once_ since he'd uttered that pert remark, so brazenly impudent that it could only have come from one person.

Her eldest son, who had now fixed his face in what he hoped came off as a 'winning' smile.

"So, erm—I guess…" Sirius Black waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the ancestral home of his fathers. "I guess—security's gotten a _bit_ better around here."

His mother did not return the smile.

ACT I : MASQUERADE

 _"'But…why did you…?'_

 _'Leave?' Sirius smiled bitterly and ran a hand through his long, unkempt hair. 'Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal…my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them…'"_

 _-JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

 **CHAPTER 1**

 ** _December 18th, 1979_**

"Well, what do you think?"

At the sound of his brother's voice at the bedroom door, Regulus Black looked up from his book and wrinkled his nose.

"What is _that_ supposed to be?"

"This, brother dear," Sirius pulled the black motorbike helmet off his head and grinned down at the younger boy, who was lying down on the bed, fully dressed, surrounded by a stack of books, parchment and quills. "Is what I like to call an _insurance policy._ "

If his younger and thoroughly wizardly brother was confused about the Muggle turn of phrase, he refused to give Sirius the satisfaction of asking what it meant.

"It's very stupid looking," Regulus remarked, blandly, as his brother tucked the offending object under the bed with care. "What is its purpose?"

The helmet safely hidden from view—next to the recently acquired leather jacket and matching gloves, a replacement for the casualties of what he liked to call 'the Great Purge'—Sirius looked up.

"It's for the motorbike. Muggles wear them to protect themselves, see?" He looked around, conspiratorial—perhaps checking to make sure there were no eavesdropping house-elves about. "It's my protection, too. If _she_ comes by when I happen to be rolling in on Elvira—I'll be wearing it, so she can't recognize me."

He plopped down on the bed next to his younger brother, scattering the materials that Regulus had spent a quarter-hour painstakingly surrounding himself with.

"You really believe that's going to work?" Regulus asked, not hiding his skepticism at the efficacy of his brother's plan. He had watched Sirius try and fail to hide things from their mother for fifteen years, after all.

"It's a temporary fix for a permanent problem," Sirius admitted, tucking his hands behind his head. "Which can be said about most things in my life right now."

Regulus chose not to reply to this comment. In the week since they had started living together again, Sirius said some variation on it about once every other hour—it was hardly worth responding to at this point.

"Merlin, this place looks like a Slytherin-themed junk shop," his older brother remarked, staring around the room with distaste.

Seven days into what Sirius referred to out of the earshot of his parents as "the new regime", and some of the finer details of the arrangement were still being worked out. In order to keep up the pretense of normalcy, Sirius had set his brother's primary hiding spot in the flat in his bedroom—the only place he could easily hide, on the off-chance a person came by looking for Sirius.

The privacy of this room meant, however, that Mrs. Black believed it was her right and duty to completely make it over in her own taste.

In addition to the fireplace (whose mantle was littered with personal effects and family photos), there was now a winged chair and footstool, a carriage clock, an ornamental night stand, and a _chandelier_ hanging from the ceiling. Everything, including the window, had been draped in heavy velvet, lending the room a sense of simultaneous grandeur and Victorian gloom.

"It's like my room back home."

"It's positively gothic," Sirius muttered, darkly. "I suppose you'll claim you _like_ it this way."

"Mother likes it this way," Regulus said, in a low voice.

"Well, heaven forbid _mummy dearest_ be unhappy," Sirius replied, airily. His brother threw him a disgruntled look. "Are they coming 'round for dinner again?"

"Yes, of course."

"They're over here every night, practically!" Sirius groaned, tossing a pillow on to the floor. "I thought the whole point of this plan was that they were going to go about life _normally_."

"Kreacher's cooking is better than yours," his brother pointed out, in a clipped tone of voice that suggested he had no further interest in discussing it. He reached over his brother and began to gather up all the papers and books that Sirius had knocked to the floor. "Anyway, you could get along just fine with them if you'd actually try."

His brother ignored this critique of his behavior, in favor of focusing his attention on the papers and books that littered the bed that he was temporarily allowing Regulus to sleep in.

"What are you even up to?" Sirius asked, ripping one of the pieces of parchment out of Regulus's hand. He managed to read the words 'Dear Aunt Lucretia' before his brother snatched it back. "Are these—are you writing _correspondence_?"

The younger boy gave a noncommittal shrug and smoothed out the parchment with his wand, making it crisp again. Sirius smirked at him and tried to read the letter over his shoulder, but his little brother shoved it under the pillow.

"Writing old Lucretia, eh?" At the thought of their father's sister, he pulled a face. "Merlin, what do you have to say to that old gossip? I know you're bored, Reg, but you don't have to owl _every_ living relation a letter from France." His younger brother huffed, and Sirius shot a knowing grin in his direction. "Or are you _enjoying_ penning pages and pages, extolling the virtues of the future Mrs. Black?"

At the telltale sign of embarrassment—his younger brother's face flushing pink—Sirius started to laugh. Ever since he had learned of the plan his mother had come up with to explain Regulus's absence from England, he had been mercilessly teasing him about his fictional "future wife", and the younger boy found it _unbearable._

"Shut up—" Regulus hissed, and shoved his brother—to little effect. Even with his growth spurt, Sirius was still several inches taller, and he was powerfully built—the slighter boy was no match for him. "It's not funny!"

"Yeah, it is!" The elder of the two crowed, ducking the pillow that was lobbed at his head. "It's bloody hysterical—mostly because you know when all this is over, she'll actually _do it._ "

"Mother is not going to—" Regulus muttered, defensively. "I mean—at least not for a few years."

The elder of the two Black brothers shook his head in pity at the younger, submitting so easily to this fate—which as far as Sirius was concerned was akin to a prison sentence.

"I cannot believe you—'not for a few years'—like that's _any better_." Sirius said, shaking his head at disgust. "When are you going to stop letting her run your life, Reg?"

"I don't let her _run my life_. I just don't _fight_ her on everything," his brother said, glaring peevishly. Sirius rolled his eyes, and Regulus couldn't resist adding. "Anyway, you're the older one—she won't care about settling me down until, well…"

He threw his brother a pointed look. Sirius shrugged, unconcerned. This was not the first time Regulus had hinted that he should be on his guard for their mother staging some ridiculous plot to marry him off. Frankly, he thought the Inferi attack and whatever was in that potion must've addled Reg's brain permanently.

"Please—let her try. If you ever should see that woman marching _me_ down the aisle, it will be at wand point." Idly, he picked up a discarded letter and scanned the contents, snorting at the description Regulus had provided their great-aunt of the south of France that looked like it was copied out of a travel guide. "Unlike you, I don't let my _mummy_ dictate the terms of my life."

It was his little brother's turn to shake his head in a pity.

"We'll see," Reg muttered, grabbing the letter and crumpling it in a ball. "Those are private! Will you stop your nosing, already?"

"Since what you're doing is so boring—sure," Sirius agreed, tweaking his brother's ear. Reggie scowled and shoved him off again. "Well, when you're done with _that_ fascinating project, you _could_ watch the telly with me."

"I already told _you_ , I'm not watching that—that _thing_!"

Sirius rolled his eyes again. He had explained the television set to Regulus several times, trying to coax him into turning it on—but no matter how dull the endless hours in the apartment were after a week of being stuck inside, the thought of having to explain _what_ the contraption was should their mother caught them watching it was too much for a young man who had so recently escaped death.

"It's a lot more interesting than—"

A loud knock at the door interrupted what would certainly been a thrilling exhortation on the merits of the 1979-80 television season.

The mood shift in the room was instantaneous.

"Be quiet and stay here—don't move," Sirius ordered, his whole body tense. His brother shot him a furtive look and he got up, and walked slowly out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a snap.

Sirius gripped his wand tightly as he passed through the kitchen to the living room—feeling more nervous than he should at the prospect of answering his own door. Who could it be?

Apart from those outside his immediate family who knew Regulus was hiding here—James, Lily, Remus and Dumbledore—there were very few who would drop by his flat unannounced in the middle of a weekday afternoon. Peter was the most likely bet—that's who he guessed was at the door. Wormtail was the only one of their tight circle who did not know anything about what had happened the night Regulus stole the locket.

Blissfully ignorant Pete.

Sirius was secretly rather relieved to have one friend who didn't know of his family…situation, but as Lily had predicted—it was proving hard to manage. Peter had been trying all week to get the five of them together for lunch, a holiday catch-up, he called it—but as someone always had to be at this flat with Sirius's younger brother, the recent ex-Death Eater now using it as his hide-out, that was impossible, and the excuses for putting off poor Wormtail were getting lamer by the day.

As he approached the door, he started getting rid of Wormy (taking him out for a drink at the pub around the corner? Promise to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron for dinner? Food was usually the best way to placate Peter) when there was another loud knock, and a voice calling from the other side.

"Oi—Black? You in there?"

Sirius's eyes widened in surprise at the familiar voice—not squeaky, with a slight whine—and sprinted over to the door to open it.

"Frank!"

Standing on the threshold of his flat—stocky, blond and sporting his usual good-natured smile, was Frank Longbottom—Auror and fellow Order member.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" Sirius asked, confused—but also grateful that he wouldn't have to promise to treat this man to a meal to get him off his doorstep.

"Don't act _too_ thrilled to see me," Frank remarked, wryly. "I'm here on business, if you must know. It's freezing—you going to let me stand out here all day?"

Sirius hesitated, then stepped aside and jerked his head, indicating he should come in.

Frank had nearly a decade on Sirius and the rest of his friends, the youngest members of the Order by far—and as a consequence, he acted much more like an older brother than friend. Sirius found it a bit condescending at times, he but certainly had a lot of respect for the wizard, who, along with Alice his wife was a rising star in the Auror office. Frank was a good bloke—even if they didn't socialize much outside of meetings.

Anyone who could put up with Mad-Eye for a boss had balls, as far as Sirius was concerned.

"Sorry you just—caught me off guard. I'm jumpy about answering the door," he said, leading Frank to the couch. "I haven't seen you in ages—everything alright? How's Alice?"

At the mention of his wife, the older man smiled.

"She's great—blooming, in fact. She asked after you, brought up the fact that we haven't seen much of Sirius Black of late." Frank sat down and looked up at Sirius, fixing him with a look of curiosity. "Dumbledore told me—well, he alluded to it, anyway—that he's got you on some kind of—special mission."

"In a manner of speaking." Sirius leaned on the arm of his chair, across from the blond wizard, and he frowned. "To tell you the truth, in terms of excitement…it's akin to a desk job."

"Who would assign _you_ something like that?"

Sirius gave him a dark look.

"The line between genius and madness is fine, Frank."

The Auror laughed—but his laugh was uneasy. Sirius was unusual on several counts among members of Order of the Phoenix. His family background made him an object of suspicion to a lot of the older witches and wizards—as did his brashness. Very few would have been willing to openly criticize Dumbledore, even as a joke.

"And how's this…mission of yours going?"

Sirius furrowed his brow, trying to think of how to answer that question—for admitting to _failure_ was not something the wizard was used to. From an early age he had been naturally brilliant at nearly everything he'd ever set out to do.

Keeping his family happy had been the one thing he'd never managed to pull off.

Sometimes it felt as though he and Regulus were play-acting their relationship before Hogwarts, as a coping mechanism to deal with the inherent awkwardness of living under the same roof again. The truce between the brothers was an uneasy one, at best—and not just because they had been on opposite sides of this war, though it was clear to Sirius that even after taking the great risk of bringing _him_ the locket, Regulus still didn't trust him. Dumbledore had _told_ Sirius he ought to be patient—patience was not his strong suit, though, and he was getting tired of waiting for Regulus to let down his guard.

Every time Sirius brought up _anything_ to do with the locket, Voldemort or what Reg might know, his younger brother clammed up and buried his face in the book he was reading for the rest of the day.

And as for his _parents_ …

He scowled at the thought.

Well, they were taking it all in stride, weren't they? One week post-unexpected reunion with their disgraceful runaway son, and they had fallen back into their old ways so naturally that you'd have thought Sirius had never left.

 _Merlin_ , was his mother exhausting.

She flitted in and out of the flat without warning, usually with fresh linens, restorative potion draughts (to be force-fed to her children on sight) and food prepared exclusively by the house-elf, as Mrs. Black was incredibly distrustful of everything Muggle-related and had deemed the kitchen "dirty and contaminated" at first glance. Walburga had even been needling him for days over the refrigerator—he had spent fifteen minutes trying to explain that the jug of milk was perfectly safe for her _precious Regulus_ to drink from, and all he had gotten for his trouble was a stinging jinx to the arm and a scolding.

It was enough to drive him mad, for Walburga's complete lack of boundaries or perspective had only gotten worse since he'd left home. Sirius was grateful her controlling tendencies were now at least contained to the happenings in the flat, though that was quite enough to keep her and her older son occupied.

They had spent the week bickering over an endless list of petty grievances—Kreacher's presence in the flat, his mandatory attendance of her nightly five-course formal meals, his clothing and, just yesterday, the length of his hair.

He felt the edges of his freshly trimmed fringe and sighed—another point to her.

At least he only saw Orion in the evenings. His father never came by the apartment except to eat dinner with the whole family, an old ritual of theirs that Walburga had insisted upon reviving. Sirius was thankful his flat offended the Black patriarch's sensibilities as much as it did, because every time he looked up from his plate at supper and into Orion's eyes—often shrewdly fixed on his older son, as if he were just waiting for him to make a run for it—he itched to pull out his wand and land a good hex.

Of course, the fantasy of cursing his father was just that—a fantasy. For the present, Orion was his most formidable adversary—practically untouchable.

That was probably the real reason he let Walburga win every battle. Sirius was afraid if he didn't let her have her way in these silly domestic squabbles, she might go back to Grimmauld Place and complain to the man wielding the _real_ power.

Anyway, the battles were one thing. He was in it to win the war.

Between rooming with his brother, readjusting to living by his parents' rule—and scheming to extricate himself from it again—he had not had much time to figure out an angle from which to approach the subject of _information gathering_. Personally, he thought the headmaster was barking mad to believe Orion and Walburga would ever _willingly_ help him—even if all he wanted was their assistance in getting Regulus to open up, they had enormous pride coupled with a deep distrust of him—but the old wizard was convinced this miraculous feat was possible, and he was the only one who could pull it off. Every time he asked Dumbledore how the hell he was supposed to convince them to help the Order of the Phoenix, the old man only gave him a twinkling eye and a cryptic remark about his 'supreme confidence' in Sirius's 'unique abilities.'

Confidence—ha! More like he was the only person _insane_ enough to try.

"That bad, huh?"

Frank had read his expression, evidently—he gave Sirius a sympathetic clap on the shoulder.

"I'm meeting with…mixed success," he answered, truthfully. "Dumbledore and I disagreed about whether I was the man for the job—I'm still not convinced. I think I'm better suited to being—out in the field, you know."

"Maybe that's why he sent me, today—" Frank grinned, slowly. "—He thinks a change of perspective will be good for you."

Longbottom reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a packet of papers and a heavy, corked metal vial. He handed them both both to a confused Sirius. The younger man tore open the packet, eyes wide, and they flew across the page, taking in information very quickly—but not understanding its meaning at all.

"What is all this?" Sirius asked, looking up from the papers. "'Nicolaus Svensson—who is he?"

"Norwegian wizard—fabulously rich and well-connected." Frank stuck his hands in his pockets. "They say his family enchanted half the fjords in Northern Europe." Sirius had already turned his attention back to the parchment, was pouring over the other pages.

"This is a—a biography. Personal information about this bloke—things he likes, women he's sleeping with—" Sirius turned his attention to the vial in his hand. "And what is—"

"You want to be careful with that," Longbottom warned. "Polyjuice Potion, that is."

Sirius looked between the bottle and the parchment packet, then back up at the Auror with an expression of dawning comprehension.

"So, Black—if you're bored with your er, 'desk job'," Frank leaned over, and his expression took on an unexpectedly steeliness. "How do you fancy a bit of _espionage_?"

Sirius's face split into a grin.

"You're joking." Frank shook his head, and Sirius rubbed his hands together with undisguised glee. "Well, what do _you_ think?"

"You may want to hear all the details before you agree—" Sirius held up his hand, solemnly. "I mean it, Black. You can't just rush into these things."

"Frank—Frank, Frank, _Frank_." Sirius rested both his hands on his knees. "I know we haven't known each other long, but _come on_."

Longbottom leaned back on the sofa and gave Sirius a hard, probing look.

"You know, I reckon Moody's right about you," he said, and though there was humor in it, there was also the trace of genuine concern. Sirius got that often from people who weren't James—the long stares, the frank disbelief at his genuine excitement when a dangerous assignment was presented to him.

So he liked to live on the edge—that was useful. The Order needed people who were willing to take risks, big ones.

If he happened to enjoy it into the bargain, what was it to them?

"What does Mad-Eye say?" he asked, a touch of defensiveness creeping into his voice.

Longbottom recognized it, and it didn't soften.

"That you're a loose cannon," Frank informed him, bluntly. "When Dumbledore suggested you for this, Mad-Eye and he argued. 'Course, Dumbledore won in the end—" Longbottom shrugged. "— _He_ thinks you're ready. Moody's just…less convinced. And it's his plan, so I suppose he thinks he should get final say."

Sirius's smile dropped.

"Wait—if this is Mad-Eye's idea…" Frank glanced out the window. He suddenly seemed ill-at-ease with the turn in the conversation. "…Shouldn't it be through the Auror Office?"

"Theoretically, yes—but Moody wants it…off the books." Frank furrowed his brow. "He's afraid of the people involved—catching wind."

"Who're the people involved?" he asked, intrigue battling with the uncomfortable sensation that always came from a criticism from one of the old guard in the Order.

Frank thought carefully before he answered the question.

"Let's say—a family that has a reputation for covering their tracks."

Sirius raised one eyebrow—there were several families he knew of who could fit that description, and there was a twist of anticipation in his gut as he waited for the answer.

"Come on, Frank—don't play coy."

But Frank was not playing at all, and the look he gave Sirius was one that only very occasionally the younger man saw. Behind that mild-mannered facade was a steel spine.

"Tell me—how well do you know Malfoy Manor?"

His gaze sharpened—oh. _That_ was who was involved with this.

"I've…been there," Sirius admitted, warily. "More than once."

Frank nodded—an answer he'd been expecting. He gave Sirius a searching look and spoke again, in the same light, careful tone that everyone had learned to use in the Auror Office—the voice of suggestion, not accusation.

"And how well do you know— _Lucius_ Malfoy?"

Sirius's own frown became more pronounced.

"A lot better than I'd like," he replied, heavily. "The _last_ time I was at Malfoy Manor was for his wedding—he's married to my cousin, you know." Frank smiled, wryly. "Don't give me that look. She's probably a cousin of yours, too, after a fashion."

Sirius stood up and walked over to the window in the living room.

"What do they want us to do?" he said, not looking at the older man, so Frank could not see the dark rain cloud covering his excitement. The pattern in Dumbledore's assignments was unmistakeable, and it gave Sirius no pleasure to think that his mentor thought _this_ was where his real value to the Order lay.

"Infiltration. It's a sting operation—of a sort." Frank was brisk and to the point. "More of the finer details are in the dossier I've given you—but the long and short of it is that tomorrow night old Abraxas Malfoy is holding some kind of gentleman's game of cards at his stately Wiltshire country manor."

"And let me guess—" Sirius wagged the bottle of Polyjuice and the packet in the air. " _This_ tosser's invited to it?"

Frank's smile was grim.

"You're starting to get the idea."

Sirius gray eyes glinted at the promise of excitement—and danger.

"Tell me everything."

It took a quarter-hour for Frank to systematically lay out the 'finer details' of Moody's plan—how they would get into the manor and what they were to do, step-by-step, when they got there—and by the end even Sirius understood the Auror's warning about 'not rushing in'. The plan was dangerous in the extreme, and there were about fifteen things Black saw that could go wrong right off the bat.

One false move, and it would turn into a suicide mission. You would have to be _mad_ to be excited about it.

But then, Sirius reasoned—you'd also have to be fairly mad to have come up with the idea in the first place. Moody hadn't gotten his nickname for nothing.

"If we're caught we're dead," he observed, dryly.

Frank nodded—in his line of work, this was the typical state of affairs. Black, naturally, was adjusting himself to the idea with alacrity. Frank watched him pace up and down the length of his sitting room, muttering details to himself. The coiled energy of the younger man bordered on manic.

"And Dumbledore said _I'm_ to be Svensson?" he asked, for the third or fourth time. "That's for certain?"

Frank nodded again.

"I've been told you're a good mimic, Black," Longbottom said, with no flattery. "Think you can pull off a Norwegian accent?"

"I can do a decent Swede—but trust me, none of the people who'll be there could tell the difference," he said, derisively. "Northern Europe's a great lump to these people. I'm amazed this _Svensson_ managed to even get an invitation."

"He's rich as Croesus and has his fingers in a lot of pies. The elder Malfoy has designs on expanding his interests to the continent, I gather," Frank said, a tinge of well-bred distaste in his voice. "The genius of using Svensson is that he's pureblood and wealthy, but nobody in this country really _knows_ him. It gives us an edge."

Sirius nodded—the fact that this man had willingly surrendered his identity for the night would make everything easier.

"We'll be able to keep the story straight," he said, running a hand distractedly through his hair. "That's for sure."

Longbottom nodded.

"I would say you're still allowed to back out—but I'm not supposed to debrief anyone else." Frank stood up and stuck out his hand. "So that means it's you or no-one."

Sirius looked down at the outstretched hand, then back up at Frank, a slow grin spreading over his face.

"It's me, then."

They shook hands—Frank's smile was wry.

"Why am I not surprised by that answer?"

Sirius let go of the other man's hand, and his expression turned grim.

"I'm going to show Moody he's wrong about me," he said, with a fresh wave of determination. Sirius had thought he was just getting over his need to prove himself—but the recent set-back in life had roused it again, and he was determined to come off well in this. Keep his cool and his trap shut—do what needed to be done.

And he _was_ ready for this.

Frank stepped forward and and squeeze his shoulder again.

"He's a tough nut to crack, Moody." He let go and continued, ruefully, "It took him ages to take Alice seriously—she still complains about it." Frank smiled again. " _She's_ told me I'm not to let you out of my sight tomorrow. My wife is fonder of you than I like, Black."

" _Everyone's_ wife is fonder of me than they'd like, Longbottom," Sirius replied, shooting him a roguish grin. "Don't worry about it—you'll get used to it. Just ask James."

"He's your best mate!" Frank punched him on the arm, but Sirius only laughed. "You don't fool them—Alice and Lily both say you're all talk. Bluster."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Well—their _sainted_ husbands have made them shockingly naive where blokes are concerned." Sirius scoffed. "Thanks to you two white knights, Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom have no idea that most men—myself included—are cads of the first order."

The Auror laughed.

"I'm hardly a Galahad—nor is your friend."

Sirius shook his head.

"Well, you _do_ give off the saintly vibe—with Potter I'm certain of it, he's got nobility in his blood, the wanker. Little does Lily know," Sirius grinned lasciviously. "Not every man goes to the marriage bed _pure as the driven snow_."

"I don't think anyone will assume _that_ of you," Frank said, then his look turned knowing and shrewd. "…Mind a use the loo before I leave?"

Frank crossed the room towards the kitchen, but Sirius was too quick for him—he practically sprinted in front of the door.

"No!" he said, blocking the entrance to the rest of the apartment. "I mean…it's a mess. I'd rather you—"

"My sensibilities aren't _that_ delicate," Frank remarked, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest. He seemed more amused than surprised. "I'll close my eyes—and I swear I won't miss."

Sirius backed up into the door itself.

"I can't—let you do that to yourself."

The dark-haired man knew he sounded insane, but he couldn't risk it. He had been good about getting rid of people quickly, so far—but in his excitement at the mission, he had almost forgotten he still had Regulus squared away in the other room. It took a lot of self-control for him not to turn around and peek inside to check that his brother hadn't wandered out looking for him.

"Are you hiding something in there, Sirius?"

Sirius realized he had raised his arms up to prevent Frank from passing. He lowered them slowly.

"Of course not."

"No—you've been acting cagey since I arrived." Frank's face split into a knowing smile. "Merlin's beard—you've got a girl back there _now_ , haven't you, Black?"

His surprise at this accusation worked in Sirius's favor—Frank took the sputtering and knee-jerk as confirmation.

Then—naturally—there was the unmistakeable sound of movement behind the door.

"You do!" Frank laughed incredulously as Sirius cursed his little brother under his breath—didn't Reg have the sense to at least keep quiet, if he was going to listen at the door? "Don't try to deny it now, she's in the kitchen—I can hear her moving about."

Sirius jerked his head back—Longbottom was right, it was obvious there was someone back there. What the hell was Regulus thinking? He was lucky Frank had the completely wrong idea about this.

Still cursing his brother, he looked back at the older man, fixing him with a teasing look, and decided to play the cards he was dealt and sell it.

"So…what if there _is_ a girl?" Sirius said, happy for the excuse and ready to have fun with it. "My flat, my business."

"You really are too much." Frank shook his head. "Is it even the same one as last time?"

Sirius grinned at the memory. The only other occasion Frank had come by his apartment to deliver Order news, the Auror had caught him giving an enthusiastic goodbye snog to air-headed girl he'd impulsively picked up the night before at a bar.

Of course, he and the girl had both been rather drunk when they'd stumbled into his flat, just past four. He didn't remember much, but he'd been completely dressed with a splitting headache when he woke up the next day, so it could hardly have been the night of 'grand passion' he had tried to sell Remus and Peter on later. It had been fun to shock the upright Auror when Jessica (was that her name?) had emerged from his bedroom, given him a casual kiss on the mouth and sauntered off to her day job in Tottenham Court Road without even acknowledging Frank.

"Of course not." The younger man wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Haven't seen her in months. I mean, _she_ was more of a one-nighter, anyway."

Longbottom's brow furrowed in faint disapproval.

"That's no way to talk about women, Black," Frank said, more gently. "It's callous. You're better than that."

"Am I?"

Not for the first time, Sirius marveled at the optimism of the Longbottom family.

"Yes, I'd say so." Frank leaned back on his foot and considered his next words thoughtfully. "You know, Alice has a cousin she's been telling me for weeks she'd like to introduce you to."

The brotherly tone of voice and manner caused Sirius to momentarily forget about Regulus. Lord, was Frank Longbottom trying to give him advice about women? To set him up with some boring witch desperate for a ring on her finger?

"You're worse than Lily! I'm in the prime of my life—why would I want to tie myself down at this stage?"

"Because when it's real, Sirius—there's nothing in the world that's like it."

Sirius scoffed at the dreamy look on Longbottom's face. James and Frank—they really were two of a kind. Prongs had spent half their school years moaning after Lily in a way that his closest friend had found at best annoying, and at worst rather pathetic.

He could not imagine making such a fool of oneself over a _girl_.

Oh, he liked girls well enough, enjoyed a good flirtation—but that was generally where it ended for Sirius Black. Remus had never approved of his cavalier attitude about women, how easily bored he got—he'd had a number of 'girlfriends' at school, and right at the moment the bird got attached was invariably when he dropped her. Lupin had taken to predicting it like clockwork, much to his friend's annoyance.

He was sure Moony—another idealist, this time of the self-imposed monk variety—was secretly rather jealous of how easy it was for Sirius.

The problem was there was no challenge to women—and unlike James, he was not stupid enough to go chasing after one who wasn't interested.

Not that they weren't _all_ interested, in Sirius's experience.

"Nancy is a very nice girl," Frank insisted. Sirius almost laughed—as if _that_ was supposed to induce him.

"My heart's a-flutter already," he said, jeeringly. "Apologies to 'Nancy', but I don't happen to like 'nice girls'—I like blondes and with loose morals."

Even Sirius knew it was a cheap line and Frank didn't buy it for a second—but it had distracted him from his desire to get through the door well enough. He had put his hands back in his pockets.

The expression that flitted across Longbottom's face wasn't judgmental, exactly—but Sirius had the distinct impression that he was being pitied, and it got his back up.

"Tell Alice she's wasting her time with me," he said, cooly.

Frank let out a heavy sigh.

"Fine. To each his own, I guess." He walked back over to the front door of the flat. "I'll be in touch about everything else—expect an owl."

He gave Sirius a salute—the same one all the Aurors in the Order gave each other, a habit they'd picked up from Moody—and Sirius, still leaning on the door, returned the gesture. After he'd left, Sirius waited a full minute for the sound of footsteps to recede into the distance before he spun back around.

"He's gone!" Sirius yelled through the door. There was no response on the other side, and he seized the handle and pulled it open. "Reg, what the hell—"

"Good afternoon," his mother said, quietly.

Walburga Black stood there, already dressed for dinner, beautiful ivory pendant at her throat and an inscrutable expression on her face. At her feet was the faithful family servant, carrying a pot of some shellfish stew he'd brought over—probably a starter dish. Kreacher's eyes glittered with undisguised malevolence.

Sirius gaped at her.

"When…did you get here?" he asked, weakly.

She gave him a hard look.

"Not so long ago," Mrs. Black answered, evasively, eyes boring a hole through his head.

"Well—didn't Regulus tell you to stay hidden?"

"He did," she replied, bluntly. "I didn't want to."

This was such an absurd thing to say that, given the circumstances, that Sirius forgot about worrying over what she might have overheard in favor of pointing out said absurdity.

"That's not how this works! How did you—" A thought occurred to him. "How did you even get into the flat in the first place?"

"Your father has connections in the Floo Department, and he's had the fireplace in your bedroom connected to ours," she answered, and Sirius's mouth fell open. "It's far more convenient."

"That's insane—how could you think that was a _remotely_ acceptable—"

"I'm tired of traipsing out amongst the filth who inhabit this complex every time I wish to see my son," Walburga remarked, acidly.

Sirius let out a loud snort.

"As _offensive_ as my walk-up might be, Mother, hasn't it occurred to you that it's a lot safer?" She looked at him as if he had two heads. "They could be watching your fireplace!"

"Nobody would dare do such a thing," his mother said, clearly insulted by the suggestion.

Sirius rubbed his eyes and crossed over to the sofa, flinging himself down on it. This was the problem with his parents—they thought being a Black meant you were exempt from the problems that plagued regular witches and wizards—every day quandaries, like Lord Voldemort offing your loved ones.

"You cannot know that for sure," he said, glaring up at his living room ceiling. "You're putting Regulus, yourself and your husband at risk if you come in and out of the flat by Floo at all hours—"

"—And I might walk in on you in a compromising position with a _'loose blonde_ '."

Sirius sat up on the couch.

"I _knew_ you were listening at the door!"

"Sirius Orion Black—" He watched her advance on him, and his natural sense of danger spiked. "Every time I think you can't _shame me_ any further you outdo yourself. You _astound_ me."

"The only thing that's astounding is that you're still surprised by it," She was leaning over him, glowering, and he forced himself to look her in the eye. Sirius forced himself to take a more mature tact than what had first popped into his head to tell her to do. "Alright—listen, I can be sensible about this."

She crossed her arms and waited for a sign that this was true, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.

"I swear to you that there have been no strange girls in this flat since Regulus arrived," Sirius said, solemnly. "And I promise that there won't be…for the remainder of the time he's here."

"And after he leaves? What then?" she asked, narrowing her eyes in his direction. He hesitated—and this hesitation was answer enough for the woman. Walburga, to his immense surprise—actually let out a tired sigh. "…Your father _did_ warn me about this."

Of the possible responses to his generous offer, her uttering _those_ words in _that_ despairing tone was not one he'd been expecting.

"Wait—he _did_?"

Mrs. Black nodded and lowered herself shakily on the far end of the couch, as if she was a fragile, wounded creature and not the lioness of a woman her son knew her to be.

"What…what did he say?"

Sirius didn't even pretend to be affronted at his parents discussing his love life—he was too intrigued by the prospect of what his staid father had assumed he'd been up to.

"He said he thought in the absence of our influence you'd be running wild," she said, mournfully. "And that there were probably _women_."

She elongated the last word as if it were an uncouth barbarism to even speak of. Sirius leaned back on the sofa and looked sideways at her.

"Well—I'm surprised." There was a distinct swagger in voice his mother picked up on at once. "I guess Dad isn't as out of touch as I thought—"

"This is not a laughing matter!" Mrs. Black snapped. "And nor is it something to brag about."

"Oh, relax. It would be odder if I _hadn't_ any experience with women—Regulus is the son you should be worried about, I bet he's petrified if a bird so much as _looks_ at him."

"Your brother is—"

"—A total ignoramus about girls. But I guess that doesn't matter to you—or him," her son continued, cooly. "Assuming we ever get ourselves out of this mess, he's just going to marry whoever you tell him to, anyway."

"And what is wrong with that?"

He stared at his mother in disbelief.

"Come again?"

"I said, what is wrong with a young man marrying the girl his parents wish him to?" his mother repeated, less angry than challenging. "Why _wouldn't_ they choose best?"

He was getting drawn into another one of her philosophical debates about the merits of doing things in the prescribed way, and whenever he did, it had funny way of coming back around to the more immediate and personal matter at hand—namely, him.

Of course, that wouldn't stop Sirius from arguing the point.

"Well, when the parents' only concern is the lineage of his bride, not her personality or looks or anything else—"

"Lineage is never the only thing that matters," Walburga interrupted him, tartly. "That she be of a good family is, of course, essential—but politeness, beauty and character are also very important."

"Oh, yes— _character,"_ he replied, with heavy sarcasm. "Something the women in this family have in _abundance_."

His mother ignored the bait, instead fixing her eldest son with one of her impenetrable stares.

"A mother only wants what is best for her son," she said, her voice quiet—and rarer still, very serious.

There was no disguising the fact that Regulus had long since ceased to be the subject of this conversation.

"The problem is—" He leaned forward. "—That the son might not happen to agree with his mother."

"Well, when have sons _ever_ known what's good for them?"

The mood in the room shifted ever so slightly—it was as if by this statement, a challenge had been issued.

Her eyes shifted from his face to the rest of his appearance. Then Mrs. Black stood up and smoothed her skirts—the mask firmly back in place.

"I can't speak to you when you're dressed that way," she sniffed, disdainfully. "You ought to change. Dinner will be served as soon as your father arrives."

She looked at him very cooly—but the abrupt drop of topic had a vaguely ominous air about it. He did not like things being left this way between them.

"More great news," her son muttered. She was hovering over the sofa, waiting for him to do as ordered.

Sirius stood up and hurried past her, eager to change into his robes for once—if only for an excuse to get out of her sight—something that had become increasingly difficult to do.

* * *

Two hours later—and halfway through the third course of dinner—the subject did come up again.

Sirius had been picking at his salmon for the better part of ten minutes, his mind completely absorbed in the mission, what he had read in the dossier, Svensson's biography—and so he did not register that his mother's question was even directed at him at first.

"Who was that man who came by this afternoon, Sirius Orion?" his mother repeated, not hiding her irritation that his mind was obviously wandering at the table.

Sirius became very aware that everyone—his mother at his left staring pointedly, his father at his right, taking a drink from his silver goblet of wine, and Regulus across from him, as reserved and reticent as he'd always been at family dinners—were all waiting for him to answer her question.

"He was…no one."

"To whom are you referring?" Orion asked his wife, lowering his cup.

"There was a young man that came by and called on him in the afternoon—one I hadn't seen before."

"He's just—a wizard I know," Sirius said, blandly. "Acquaintance of mine."

"You were speaking very _familiarly_ for him being a mere 'acquaintance'," Walburga said, taking a prim bite of her fish.

"Oh?" Her husband lowered his fork and knife. "What about?"

Now his father was getting interested, _fantastic_.

"Nothing we need to get into," Sirius answered for her, hastily. He had no desire for a repeat performance of the conversation about what he may or may not be doing with women, even if he was still curious about what Orion thought. "He's really no one—"

"What is his name?"

Sirius met his mother's eyes and could see she was not going to let the topic drop unless he gave her something. With a final sad poke of the knife, he abandoned the salmon altogether.

"It was Frank Longbottom, if you _must_ know."

There was a loud clatter; Regulus had dropped his fork in shock.

" _He_ was the one who was here?"

Everyone in the family turned to look at him. It was the first thing Regulus had said in two courses.

" _You_ know this man, as well?" Walburga asked, rounding on the younger and more pliable son. He had turned the same color of the cream table cloth, and now looked ill—Sirius doubted it had anything to do with the fish they were eating. He gave the younger boy a hard, canny look across the dinner table.

"I…no. Not _really_."

Sirius let out a little snort of scorn.

"He does," Sirius informed his mother, dryly. "By reputation. No need to be so nervous about it, Reg."

"I'm not," Regulus replied, busying himself with readjusting the napkin in his lap.

Sirius laughed and reached for his goblet of wine.

"Well, he wasn't here to _arrest you_ , if that's what you're thinking."

He took a swig. Regulus's ears burned scarlet. Mrs. Black, watching the exchange with great interest, turned at once to her older son—ready to demand an explanation.

"Why in heaven's name would that man have arrested your brother?"

He drained the goblet and dropped it back on the table with a _clunk_.

"He happens to be a very well-known Auror—a hotshot who has become a bit of a thorn in the side of a certain dark wizard." Mrs. Black's face froze in an expression of displeasure that her son pretended not to notice. "A dark wizard who, I don't need to remind _you,_ was until very recently your son's _master_."

The atmosphere at the dinner table shifted at once. What had up until now been muted and awkward—what Black family dinners at the best of times were—became tense.

Nobody spoke for a moment that seemed to stretch on for hours.

"What have I told you," Walburga hissed, angrily. "About bringing up the _Dark Lord_ at _dinner_?"

"That it's improper," Sirius answered, sarcasm dripping from every word. He put his finger to his chin. "Or was it uncouth…Ill-bred? Indelicate, maybe?"

Mr. Black eyed his elder son warily, already steeling himself for the familiar argument.

"It is _all_ of those things," Mrs. Black snapped.

"He is the reason we're sitting here right now!" Sirius clanked his own fork on the Black Family china. "I just don't see the point in pretending otherwise. I don't see the point—" He reached over the table to grab the bottle of wine and pour what was left of it, sloppily, into his goblet. "—Of pretending anything about this is _normal_."

He lifted the goblet to his lips—but it was empty. Sirius lowered it and looked at his father, whose wand was lifted. He'd silently vanished the rest of what was in his son's glass.

"I think you've had quite enough," Orion informed his son, evenly. Sirius slammed the glass back down on the table with a tad too much force, the silverware rattled.

"I think I need _more_ , actually," Mr. Black raised his eyebrows in annoyance, which only served to spur his son on, and Sirius continued, sarcastically, "We should _all_ have more wine—these interminably endless meals would be _tolerable_ if we got tight before, during and after."

His parents did not reply, nor did his brother, who still had his head bent—Sirius had a sneaking suspicion Kreacher was under the table near him and was providing him comfort.

" _This_ is your idea of tolerable conversation, is it?" his father remarked, voice laden with irony. "Carrying on about the Dark Lord?"

"At least I'm talking about something that _matters_."

"Upsetting your mother and brother is very important to you, clearly," Orion observed, outwardly calm—even placid, which was always his most dangerous mode—a sign Sirius usually missed.

"You know very well that if it weren't for _Lord Voldemort_ ," Sirius's brother always flinched at the name proper, so he took great pleasure in saying it. "We wouldn't be here now. _He's_ the most pressing thing we have to discuss, and everyone at this table apart from _me_ is hellbent on avoiding the subject like the plague. I can't _take it_ anymore."

He turned from his father to his brother, who had at last looked up. Reg looked utterly miserable, and worse—frightened.

"Regulus—" Sirius implored him directly. "Just talk to me. I know you want to—you came to me for help, and I want to help you—but I need this—"

"This is dinner, not an opportunity for you to interrogate your brother!" his mother scolded him, furiously, but Sirius ignored her.

"You want to take him down as much as I do." Regulus's brown eyes, unblinking, looked into his brother's flinty gray—and for a moment Sirius felt he was getting through. "I know you're afraid, but—"

"It's not that simple," Regulus said, practically pleading with him to stop.

"It's not complicated! Who do you think you're protecting? Yourself, them—" Sirius gestured at his parents but didn't look at them, missed the alarm on his mother's face and the thunderous anger on his father's. "—Or is it someone else?"

" _Sirius Orion_ —!"

"The least you can do is tell me who got you in with those bastards in the first place," he pressed, recklessly—the wine having evidently gone to his head, as his father suggested. "Who was—was it _her_?"

"Stop it!" his brother yelled back, face bloodless—and Regulus pulled his chair out roughly, nearly tripping over Kreacher in his haste to get away from Sirius.

" _Enough_."

Mr. Black had stood up himself—at his full height he towered over Regulus, his seated wife and older son—and he was clearly in command of the room.

"Regulus, sit back down," Orion ordered him. "Sirius, _be silent_."

His younger son immediately obeyed, but Sirius opened his mouth to argue—then caught sight of the dangerous look in his father's eyes.

After a short pause to recollect himself, Mr. Black sat down again, his back rigid, and when he addressed the son who was still looking at him mutinously, it was with the surety of man who knows he will be obeyed without question.

"Since you can't control your _tongue_ at meals," Orion told Sirius, coldly. "From now on you'll _hold it_ unless spoken to directly by me or your mother."

"But—"

"I trust I don't have to repeat myself," he snapped, icily. "That you—understand me?"

Sirius's father did not often allude to the power he had over his son—but when he did, he didn't mince the seriousness of the threat. His firstborn had also learned in these moments that breaking eye contact with Orion was a bad idea, and so he was careful not to look away—as much as he would like to.

He gulped and nodded.

"Yes—I understand."

Orion kept staring at him, his look positively withering—and then he turned to address his younger son, staring glumly at the remnants of his salmon on the plate.

"Regulus—is this what he does when the two of you are alone?" Regulus looked up from his plate, exchanged an alarmed but silent look with his older brother. "Does he try to ferret information out of you?"

"No, Father," Regulus answered, quietly, reluctantly looking up at Orion. Mr. Black was not so angry when he looked at his younger son—but it made Regulus no less frightened.

"And you're not lying to me to protect him," Orion said, wryly—Reg immediately shook his head.

"No—he really doesn't, Father," Regulus answered, with a tad more confidence. Orion stared into his younger son's eyes for a moment, and apparently satisfied with the truth of this answer, nodded.

"I'm glad to hear it," Mr. Black leaned back in his chair, relaxed and normal again. "If he were, and I got wind of it, I'd be forced to order Kreacher to remain here with the two of you _all the time_ , like you were children that have to be _supervised_."

Orion's eyes darted to Sirius, anticipating the sharp retort—but the older boy managed to restrain himself by clenching his jaw shut. Mrs. Black looked rather astounded—she had not yet gotten over her husband exercising his mysterious power over their unruly son.

"Kreacher—serve the next course," Orion continued, and all was well and right at the table again—as if nothing untoward had taken place.

His family, with great, collective effort, followed suit, everyone settling back into their seats, controlling their expressions again. Mr. Black surveyed them all, and when he was satisfied that things were as they should be once more, he cleared his throat and looked over at his wife.

"Walburga—before we got on this tedious digression, what were you saying? Something about your brother?"

As humiliating as it was to be told not to speak unless spoken to, in a way, it made the salad course easier for Sirius. He could clear his head and calm down—and assess the extent to which he'd just set himself back.

He had been so close to getting through to Regulus, he was sure of it—but then his father had intervened and ruined it, like he always did. Of course, Sirius had no one but himself to blame for it.

Orion had used the weapon his son had handed to him on a silver platter—the knowledge that Sirius was an unregistered Animagus—to great effect. He and his father hadn't spoken directly about it since Mr. Black had forced him to transform, but the threat lingered under the surface of their every interaction.

Orion wielding it over something as anodyne as Sirius daring to "disrupt dinner" by pointing out the hard truths of their situation was _classic_ , Sirius thought, as he watched his father calmly listen to his wife drone on about their December social calendar.

His parents' refusal to see the world as it was was near- _pathological_.

Well, he could thank his family's avoidance tactics for one thing—neither Walburga nor Orion brought the subject of Frank Longbottom up again. This was very good, as his mother had not gotten to the most crucial point—asking him why the famous Auror had popped in on Sirius in the first place.

So tomorrow night's mission was still safe, at least.

He glanced up at Regulus occasionally, trying to communicate the silent 'thank you' that his little brother was owed—for what Reg said had not, strictly speaking, been entirely true. Sirius hadn't grilled him incessantly in the hours they spent in the flat together, alone, but they had skirted around the subject of the Death Eaters. This evening had not been the first time he had asked Regulus who it was that had gotten him involved with Lord Voldemort's cause—a perfunctory question on his part, as the older of the two was certain he knew the answer already.

Regulus refused to implicate anyone. His elder brother supposed it made sense—if he was going to name names, it wasn't likely to be his cousin or cousins' husbands, and he was sure it had been Lucius or the Lestranges who had gotten his impressionable brother to join Voldemort's cause in the first place.

The tremendous courage he had shown by taking the locket had not been a fluke, of that Sirius was sure—but all the same, whatever his younger brother had seen as a Death Eater must've terrified him, for he had completely clammed up. Now, with Orion threatening them with Kreacher, coaxing Reg into helping was going to be even harder.

He was still inwardly berating himself for making his own job that much harder when dessert in the form of a custard meringue arrived.

"Sirius."

His father saying his name abruptly jolted his son out of his head. Sirius raised his eyes, suppressing the urge to give a theatrical start at being formally addressed.

"How are you faring on that little project of ours?"

Mr. Black's tone was pleasant and conversational—for him, anyway. Sirius inwardly groaned at the topic of dinner conversation turning to the tedious book of Black family inheritance law currently sitting on the bedside table next to his cot.

"What are you having him do, Orion?" Mrs. Black asked, immediately suspicious. Regulus looked between his father and elder brother, eyes shining with curiosity.

"Your son is looking into something for me—a family matter, legal." Orion had not taken his eyes off his son. "Well?"

Sirius stabbed the meringue and let the dessert spoon fall limply to the plate.

"My foray into the _fascinating_ world of inheritance law," he griped, moodily. "Is going about as well as you'd expect."

"That is not a particularly revealing answer," Orion said, cooly. "You've had plenty of time to look into this. I want specific details about your progress."

He sighed and fiddled with his spoon. Sirius had not been stupid enough to ignore his father's direct orders—but his investigation into the murky question of how to get back Elladora Black's opal necklace had been done extremely grudgingly.

"I regret to inform you that your _dear_ sister-in-law Druella is barking up the wrong tree, as regards the opals—at least if she's looking for a way of getting them through legal means. She'd be better off cursing the Burkes."

"Explain."

"From what I gleaned, reading the incoherent scribblings of my great-great-grandfather," Sirius continued, voice flat. "Personal bequests are commonplace enough in the family. If unmarried Elladora gave the opals to her Burke niece, that was well within her rights, and sucks to any Blacks who want them back."

"I hope you have something a _little_ better than that after _this_ long," his father replied, his eyes flinty.

Sirius huffed—but as his father had expected, when he opened his mouth he had an answer.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't think it seemed plausible, either—I figured there'd be some custom to keep anything of worth from leaving the family coffers, so I dug a little deeper."

"And what did you find?"

"That I was right, of course," Sirius said, and there was a tiny hint of self-satisfaction in the answer. "Most of the real treasures have been tied up in the entail. They can't be given away or bequeathed—they can only be _lent_ out. If Elladora was loaned the opals by the Head of the family—in her time it would've been her brother—then she wouldn't have the right to leave them to anyone. And in _that_ case—" He laid his hands triumphantly on the table. "—They would be _your_ wife's, by right of custom."

"Why would they be mine?" Walburga asked, confused and annoyed, as she usually was when the conversation concerned things about which she knew nothing.

"There's an odd tradition that all the jewels go to the youngest wife in the line of direct succession," Sirius shrugged. "I think it's supposed to make you feel like a crown princess. Only you can say if it's working, of course."

His mother raised an eyebrow at his sly look but didn't scold him. It was too late in the evening to start another fight.

"That's a very clever solution you've come up with," Orion remarked, dryly. "Very tidy."

"Isn't it? I thought so."

"Unfortunately—" Sirius's smile fell. "I'm certain they _were_ Elladora's. Her initials were carved into them, they wouldn't have allowed _that_ if they were on loan to her."

Sirius let out a disgruntled noise—the look on his father's face and his general demeanor said one thing: this wasn't over. It was so clearly a punishment to be stuck looking into this, and Orion was relishing in it.

"What is so special about these damned opals?" he grumbled. "Why does Cissy even want them?"

"It's her mother who has asked, as I told you—" He shrugged, airily. "They're of extraordinary beauty. And I believe they have magical properties."

"Oh, so it's really Narcissa's _husband_ who wants them, and he's sent Druella sniffing around so we'll do his dirty work for him." Sirius crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Typical Malfoy behavior, to be expected."

He picked up the spoon and shoveled some meringue into his mouth. His brother, meanwhile, had been staring at his own dessert for a minute, lost in thought—when he suddenly looked up.

"Father," Regulus said, timidly. "Where…did the opals come from?"

Orion blinked in surprise—though he had not ordered Regulus not to speak unless addressed, that was his usual mode of behavior. Very rarely did he say anything out of turn.

"I'm not sure what their origin is," he said to his younger son, slowly. "I've only ever heard them referred to as Elladora's opals."

"But how did Aunt Elladora get them to begin with?" Regulus pressed. "Surely the only way to resolve the question for certain is to find out how they came into the family in the first place."

Sirius and Orion both stared at him—equally surprised.

"I mean—it's a bit of a long-shot," Sirius said, scratching his head. "But, well—theoretically, you might be able to prove they were _intended_ to be tied to the main estate. Assuming they were purchased and not a gift. Elladora didn't have any suitors, did she?"

"She would not have gotten that necklace from them if she did," Walburga informed him, with an exasperated sigh. "Opals are not an appropriate gift for anyone but a fiancée."

"Why not?"

"Jewels should only be given to one's wife, sister or mother, Sirius Orion—obviously." She rolled her eyes skyward. "Don't you have _any_ sense of propriety?"

"Evidently not—though as I'm not giving jewels to anyone, it hardly matters."

Regulus had been deep in thought all through this bickering—and he suddenly looked up, a light having come on in his head.

"Father—isn't there a book of letters and papers from the last century with all the family affairs—Phineas Nigellus's private collection?"

"There is," his father returned, evenly.

"So—there has to be something in _there_ about where they came from."

Regulus had jumped on the question of the opals with surprising eagerness—it was the most animated he'd been all night, except for when he'd nearly fled the table. His father's brow furrowed.

"That's an excellent point," Orion said, over Sirius's loud groan. "And a new angle for your elder brother to investigate. This case is far more interesting than I anticipated."

Sirius wrinkled his nose in irritation and shot his father a foul look.

"Why are you making _me_ do extra work?" he asked, indignant at the injustice of this. "It was Regulus's idea—and anyway, he clearly _wants_ to do it. Why not let him?"

It was hard to deny that; Regulus was displaying as much eagerness for the task as his brother did repulsion for it. Orion studied both of his sons, squaring the two of them up, before his eyes rested on Sirius.

"I don't owe you an explanation for why I've given _you_ this task. Suffice it to say that I have. That being said…" He trailed off, thoughtfully. "…Regulus can assist you. _Assist,_ not do the work. You can both look through the papers."

Sirius let out another huff but nodded, exchanging a look of brotherly annoyance with Regulus. _He_ gave his father a small smile. Kreacher cleared away the wine glasses and brought out the after-dinner coffee, which they drank in what was to Sirius blissful silence.

Eventually that came to an end.

"On a related note, Sirius—how is looking into the matter that had _you_ so concerned when we last spoke about this?"

Sirius chewed slowly on his meringue—it had turned gelatinous in his mouth and he longed to spit it out, preferably on Kreacher's head—and thought about how he was going to answer his father's question.

"I figured out a solution to _that_ problem two days after you gave me the book, actually," he admitted.

"Impressive," Orion said, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Sirius was looking at his mother with obvious trepidation. "Care to elaborate?"

"Not particularly."

"And why is that?"

"I don't want to offend the sensibilities of anyone at the table," Sirius said, still watching his mother.

Orion saw where he was looking and raised one heavy eyebrow.

"If you can't say it in front of your mother," Walburga fixed her son with a severe look. "I have doubts about the efficacy of your plan."

"It's neat," Sirius said, polishing off his meringue and pushing the plate away from him.  
"It would take me out of the line of succession automatically and irrevocably, and the best part is—" He leaned towards his father. "You wouldn't have to lift a wand."

His father steepled his fingers and leaned on both elbows at the head of the table, considering his elder son with a grim smile.

"I think I can guess what you have in mind."

"I'm sure you can't."

"Do you already have a woman lined up, or are you still looking for one?" Orion relished the look of astonishment on Sirius's face, then turned to his perturbed wife. "Your son has decided that he'd like to get married after all."

" _What_?"

Mrs. Black's eyes and tone were sharp, and she was focused with deadly precision on her eldest son.

"Explain what you mean to your mother, Sirius," Orion said, eyes gleaming in the dim light of the dying tallow candles on the table.

He battled with himself over whether it was worth provoking her this close to the end of the meal, when they would be going back to Grimmauld Place and leaving him and Reg in peace.

Well—looked like his father wasn't giving him a choice.

"The only surefire way to take myself out of the line of succession…" Sirius said, slowly. "…Is to marry a Muggle or a Muggle-born witch."

The delicate clink of silverware being set down cut through the heavy silence the statement elicited.

He was not looking at his mother—after her reaction to that afternoon's tussle over girls he may or may not be having one-night stands with, Sirius did not fancy facing what was sure to be a livid expression, so instead he looked to his father. By contrast, Mr. Black took the news of his son's intentions in stride; he seemed to be seriously considering the prospect.

"That _would_ work. Of course, it would have to be by wizard rites, and the—union—would only be valid if there was issue." Orion looked thoughtful. "Seems a lot of trouble to go to, carrying on with a mudblood and siring her half-blood brat over a mere _principle_."

Mrs. Black had started to tremble, her hand inching towards her wand on the table. Only Regulus dared look at her, and it was with mild terror.

"You have to have a kid for it count?" Sirius wrinkled his nose. "Also, I'd prefer if you didn't use _that word_ in my flat."

To Sirius's surprise, his father did not assert his rights as patriarch and holder of his son's leash to push back on the request to refrain from offensive language—instead he shrugged and nodded, indicating by his dismissiveness it was of no consequence to him what word was used to refer to his hypothetical daughter-in-law.

"Muggle, then—it amounts to the same thing, as far as your plan goes," Orion said, leaning back in his chair. "Rather daring—you really intend to go through with it?"

Mr. Black was also not looking at his wife—he could guess that she was quietly seething, and the dressing down his whelp of a son was about to get for being stupid enough to say this around her was quite deserved.

"I might've—the having a child with her part I didn't realize," Sirius admitted, glibly. "I figured I'd just go down to Muggle courthouse with a good-natured bird, get hitched real quiet-like, then grab a quickie divorce down the—"

"Be quiet!" his mother cried, standing up and brandishing her wand at him, furiously. Sirius actually dropped his coffee cup in shock—but he quickly rallied. "How dare you—talk about marrying filth—in front of me—"

His involuntary eye-roll was not a particular bright move, in the circumstances.

"Mother, it was a _joke_!" Sirius stood up and threw his napkin down on the table. "I'm not seriously going to—"

"Marriage to common _harlots_ is not something to _joke about_!" his mother said, the word sharp and poised like a weapon. She was gripping her wand very tightly. "And If I _ever_ hear you speaking that way in my presence again I'll make it so you can't do _anything_ with _any_ woman."

Sirius stared at her in flabbergasted shock—then collapsed back on his chair, weakly. Nobody at the table spoke for a painful half-minute.

"Well, then—guess that plan's out," he said, in a small voice, and he hunched his shoulders in a defensive posture.

Still fuming, Walburga lowered herself back into the chair.

Overall, Sirius thought, looking over at his brother—now glaring at him almost as fiercely as Mrs. Black, angry that he'd upset her with his ridiculous provocation—not a particularly successful meal in terms of ingratiating himself with his family.

Only his father seemed thoroughly unperturbed by the effect of his older son's antics. It was only after Kreacher had cleared the last of the plates away that he addressed Sirius again—and his voice was calm and even.

"I think perhaps it would be wise for you to keep…exploring your options," Orion said, placidly. "If you're still determined to keep on this course."

"I am," his older son said, churlishly—avoiding his mother's hostile glare in favor of the table.

Orion pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time.

"Well, you'll have plenty of time tomorrow evening to continue your studies." Mr. Black paused. "In our absence."

"Your absence?" Regulus asked, frowning.

"You won't you be around tomorrow?" Sirius said, dabbing moodily at the coffee he had spilled on the table cloth.

"Of course we won't," his mother snapped. "It's the 19th."

"What's the 19th?"

"It's grandfather's birthday," Regulus said, softly.

Sirius dropped the napkin. He had completely forgotten about Arcturus's birthday party—and the large, daylong gathering of the entire extended clan to celebrate the momentous occasion when God had seen fit to grace them all with his presence. Because it was in mid-December, it was the traditional kick-off for the Black Family's glittering Christmas social calendar.

Like most of their family traditions, the event was self-important, pompous and dull. Sirius hadn't thought about the party since the last one he'd been forced to attend.

Now his mind was reeling at his extraordinary luck.

"Right—it's the annual soirée," Sirius said, recovering from his surprise. "I'd forgotten. How old _is_ your father turning? A hundred and fifteen?"

"Seventy-eight," Orion replied, irritably. "Which you know."

It seemed—to his oldest grandson, at least—that Arcturus had _always_ been seventy-eight. The Black patriarch's greatest claim to fame was the Order of Merlin he'd gotten for loaning the Ministry an astronomical sum of money, and in Sirius's opinion, at least, was his father _sans_ Orion's few good qualities—chiefly his ironic wit. Cold and pitiless, with even less time for sentiment than his son—Sirius could see him in his mind's eye now, holding court in the drawing room at _Noire_ House, expecting everyone to kiss his ring.

What a joke.

"So everyone in the family will be together…" Sirius said, trying not to make his delight at this news too obvious. "…and with him."

It really was difficult to contain himself—this could not have been more convenient timing.

When Frank had told him of the mission, he had had every intention of just skipping dinner at the flat and making an excuse later, damn the consequences—but if they would be at his grandfather's palatial mansion in Suffolk, that meant neither Black parent would be any the wiser about him sneaking off.

All he had to of was could keep Reg quiet.

"Isn't it a shame we're both going to miss out on all the fun, Regulus?" Sirius said, unable to contain his grin. His younger brother actually looked disappointed that he would not be stuck at this ghastly family gathering. "Just a quiet brotherly evening in for us. Reading and introspection."

The younger boy ignored his brother's sarcasm.

"I'll write grandfather a letter, wishing him well," Regulus said to his parents. "And you can say I've sent it from France."

Walburga nodded approvingly at this display of automatic deference and polite duty. Sirius tried to contain his urge to mime retching. What a little kiss-up Reg was!

"Is— _everyone_ in the family going to be there?" he asked, leg twitching nervously. He half expected his father to yell at him for speaking out of turn. "Narcissa as well?"

Orion was so surprised by the question he forgot to scold Sirius for asking it.

"Why wouldn't she be?"

Sirius shrugged, trying to keep his tone light and casual.

"Oh, I don't know—I thought, with her being in the family way and all…"

"Narcissa understands the importance of family obligations—as does her husband," his father informed him, dryly—the implication being that there was something that Sirius could learn from her. "Naturally they will be there."

He snorted. Of his cousins, Narcissa was the one he had always been most dismissive of. Bellatrix one could respect, even if she was a cut-throat bitch—but her youngest sister was a great deal like their mother Druella, with a tendency to put on demure airs, and he could only imagine how much more unbearable and snobbish a Malfoy marriage had made her. Cissy's time in school had also overlapped longest with his, and Sirius had never gotten over her tale-telling to their family about him..

No wonder Snivellus had been so keen on sucking up to her future husband.

"No, Orion—remember—she would be coming alone this year," Walburga corrected him. "She sent regrets—but Lucius has some obligation to his father he can't get out of."

A-ha.

Relief flooded into him—more great news. This proved Moody's hunch right—Lucius had fed Cissy some line to give her family as an excuse, that was the only explanation for him skivving off—and it meant the information that they suspected would be passed during this game _was_ important, and that he was taking no chances.

Best of all, there was not a chance a single Black would be at Malfoy Manor tomorrow—they would all be occupied by this idiotic birthday party.

"Has he?" Sirius's father looked annoyed. Maybe because he was still smarting from Sirius catching him out over his real feelings on his nephew-in-law, he restrained from comment. "Oh—well, at least _she_ will be there."

"I look forward to hearing all about it," Sirius said, blandly. He barely registered his mother's reply—already he was far away from them all, running plans through his head, mind full of the mission and blood pumping with adrenaline at the excitement and danger involved.

He completely missed the look of heavy suspicion that was being leveled at him from across the table by his little brother.

As usual, no one was paying much attention to Regulus.


	2. Chapter 2

_'_ _He was younger than me,' said Sirius, 'And a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.'_

 _'_ _But he died,' said Harry._

 _'_ _Yeah,' said Sirius. 'Stupid idiot…he joined the Death Eaters.'_

 ** _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

 **December 19th, 1979**

There was something they were keeping from him.

Peter Pettigrew was not, contrary to popular and widespread opinion, an idiot. While never a stellar performer in the world of academia—or magic—he had other, less obvious qualities to recommend him.

What else could explain the recent and dramatic upswing in his fortunes? When the initial terror—and it _had_ been terrifying, he could not deny it, certainly not in his private thoughts—when that initial fear had subsided, Peter was amazed at the feeling he was left with.

Importance. A sense of consequence he'd never felt before, not even at school, when he had been part of the most exclusive, _dangerous_ social set around.

Now he had something no one else did—he was someone no one else _was_.

No, he was not an idiot—he knew exactly where his value lay. It was in his access. The fact that he had been around them for so many years that they took him for granted gave him an advantage no other wizard in England could boast of. He was unassuming, he was careful—he was _sly_.

He was forever underestimated, most of all.

Peter was also very good at keeping his mouth shut, which was more than could be said for the dark-haired man who now sat across from him at the corner table of the Leaky Cauldron.

"You know what I've been thinking about?" Sirius said, gulping down his ale. They were the first words he'd spoken in nearly ten minutes—which his short, fat friend was sure must've been a record.

"You _think_ now, Padfoot?" James asked, smirking on his right side. Sirius didn't return the smile—he ignored the joke altogether in favor of staring off in the middle-distance. Peter found that disquieting.

Sirius rarely failed to follow James's cue—they all _always_ followed James's cue.

"I've been thinking—" Sirius stared down into his half-full tankard and lowered his voice. "—It might be a good idea for us to get registered."

Peter and James goggled at him.

"No, you haven't."

"Yes, I have," Sirius said, a bite of impatience in his voice. "Isn't Lily always getting on you about it?"

James exchanged an incredulous look with Peter—who, unlike Sirius, did follow the cue—and then turned back around on their friend.

"Yes…" he said, slowly. "But that's Lily, and this is _you_." James laughed and set his drink down on the table. " _You're_ the one who always says the fact that no one knows is a huge asset—"

"Yeah, well—now I'm starting to think it might be a liability," Sirius snapped, and after a moody stare at the pair of them, took another gulp of his drink.

"Why?" James asked, his frown deepening. "I mean—why _now_? You really think _this_ is the time to worry about it?"

"I'm just—wondering if it might not come back to bite us in the end, that's all." Sirius sighed. "Forget it."

James made eye contact with Peter and rolled his eyes, good-naturedly. Peter returned the smile, timidly—his naturally nervous demeanor was useful in these situations—it masked his real concern.

Sirius had been acting oddly all afternoon. He'd been distracted and distant the entire time the three of them had been here sitting here—nearly an hour of monotone, monosyllabic replies. This was not strange in and of itself—he was prone to moodiness and fits of sullen temper—but James's reaction was telling. Though he was clearly concerned about Sirius, and at times annoyed, he was not at all surprised by his best friend's behavior.

That meant James _knew_ what was bothering Sirius.

And Peter didn't.

"What do _you_ think, Wormy?"

Upon being asked to give his opinion, Peter started. Sirius was looking at him—looking through him, more accurately—but not seeing him at all. He was sure he'd been asked the question in a perfunctory way, or because Padfoot was irritated with James's cavalier dismissiveness of his concerns—not because Sirius really cared what he thought.

Peter had been friends with Sirius Black for over eight years, and did not think he had ever changed his mind about anything.

"W-well…I mean—isn't it sort of—too late?" he asked, tapping his fingers against the table. "I mean, we—they monitor your progress, could we—we couldn't pretend to do it all over again, could we?"

As he expected, Sirius ignored this answer and looked back at James.

"What if we went to Dumbledore and told him?" he half-whispered—as if he was trying to keep eavesdroppers from hearing. "Came clean?"

"I don't think we should be discussing _any_ of this without Moony."

"I mean—technically," Sirius laid back in his chair. "It's not really Remus's decision to make—"

"You try telling _him_ that," James said, flatly. "We're not speaking to Dumbledore if Remus doesn't agree, and I'm going to tell you now, he'd rather _die_ than do it."

"So we should risk going to prison to _assuage_ Moony's feelings?"

"There's no more risk now than there was four years ago," James said, irritably. "And the whole damn thing was _your_ idea, if you recall."

The bar was remarkably quiet for a weekday afternoon—so they did not even have the ambient sounds of the Leaky Cauldron to drown out the heavy atmosphere around the table.

Peter looked between Sirius and James, wondering at what his best approach was. Usually when the two of them argued, Remus was the one who patched things up.

Well—he had his opening, and he needed to suss out that part of the situation.

"Where _is_ Moony, anyway?" Peter asked, looking around. "I thought he'd come meet—"

"He's not coming," Sirius cut him off, briskly. "He's—doing a favor for me, so he can't."

"Is he—"

"Yeah, he is," Sirius answered James's unfinished question, bluntly. "What time is it?"

Rather than commenting on the curt change of subject, James reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy gold watch that his father had given on his 17th birthday.

"Almost four." Sirius sighed. "What is it _now_?"

"I've got to leave soon—I have a meeting." Sirius shifted around in his seat. "I need to swing by the flat first and—pick a few things up."

"Where are you headed?"

"The fucking Hog's Head, of all places," Sirius said, bitterly. "Scotland at this time of year is miserable—and Aberforth doesn't heat the bar."

Peter chewed his lip. Sirius had always loved Hogwarts in December—had made a point of lamenting that his parents didn't let him stay over the hols. The weather was not why he was agitated.

"What—"

"It's for—you know," Sirius told Peter, smiling in spite of his mood. "Not allowed to say anything more, Wormy—you understand."

Wormtail's eyes widened. Oh, yes—he understood. Far better than Padfoot did, in fact.

"Cheer up, Padfoot," James said, nudging his grumpy best mate in the foot. "Come on, it's nearly Christmas!"

This mention of the Yuletide season, rather than cheering Sirius up, only seemed to make him surlier.

"Christmas—bah."

"Lily and I are having everyone over on Christmas Eve," James continued, pointedly annoying the Scrooge-like behavior coming from his left. "Remus is coming. What about you, Wormtail?"

"Well…" Peter chewed his finger. "I should be able to pop by. I told my mum I'd have dinner with her—"

Sirius let out a loud and inexplicably bitter laugh that cut him off, and he rounded on the shorter man.

"How _is_ your mother, Peter?"

There was an odd sort of aggressiveness in the question that caught Peter off-guard.

"She's—fine, thanks."

Inquiring after Mrs. Pettigrew—that was another Sirius Black first.

"I'm sure she'll be very happy to spend the night with you—it _is_ a holiday that's supposed to be about family, after." He slouched in his chair, surly and distant again. "Well, it goes without saying that _I_ won't be able to come on Christmas Eve."

Peter didn't even bother to hide his shock—that was the biggest tell that something was off. Sirius Black, not spend Christmas with Lily and James Potter?

Even Prongs seemed surprised by _this_ bit of news.

"You're not—why the _hell_ aren't you coming, Padfoot?" Sirius shot him a dark look and James's face fell. "…But—you're not saying you have to worry about _that,_ even on—on Christmas Eve?"

"Who _else_ is there to do it?" Sirius pointed out, bitterly. "It's not like I have holiday _leave_. I have to be there."

"But surely—"

"I'm not exactly _thrilled_ about it myself, Prongs—" Padfoot cut him off, coldly. "But I don't have a choice."

The other man opened his mouth to argue—but his eyes fell on Peter, and he closed it again. Wormtail had not the slightest idea what they were talking about—but as was usual in arguments between them, they were so absorbed in each other they'd both forgotten he was there.

Abruptly, Sirius stood up. His unfinished ale sat on the table.

"Well, anyway—I'm off."

He clasped Peter on the shoulder, distractedly—but not without affection.

"I'll see you later, boys," he said, vaguely—he could have been addressing either or both of them, and he walked over to the front door of the Leaky Cauldron without giving either a second glance.

As soon as the door had swung shut behind their friend, Peter's head swung in James's direction.

"What is going _on_ with him?"

His friend's smile had a distinctly strained quality that Pete picked up on at once.

"Don't worry—he's just…" He waved his beer in the air and trailed off, helplessly. " _You_ haven't done anything wrong, anyway."

This was no help at all. Peter hadn't thought he had done anything wrong. He was not so stupid as to think _he_ had the power to bother Sirius to that degree.

Well, he _did_ , but Padfoot had no idea, and he had no intention of letting him find out.

"D'you think he really means it, about…you know…?" Peter asked, tapping one foot nervously against the chair. James shook his head.

"Of course not! Even if _we_ were found out—" James lowered his voice again. "—In the middle of a war, you think _that's_ a high priority for the Ministry?"

This was couched as an obvious statement, so Peter nodded, furiously. He had been doing this for so long that it was second nature for James to just assume Wormy always agreed.

" _And_ it's dead useful for the Order that no one knows. Sirius is just…" James leaned back in his chair and ruffled the back of his head, distractedly. "You know how he gets about Christmas, and the holidays and—everything. He'll be in a better mood after the new year."

James clapped him on the shoulder as Sirius had done and gave Wormtail what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. Wormy let himself be reassured—even though the drink, the smile—the entire exchange—had done little to ease his mind.

In fact, it had all but confirmed his suspicions.

Sirius was, it was true, tetchy around the holidays—but Peter had spent eight Decembers with his friends, and he could spot the difference between normal surliness and whatever _this_ was a mile away.

"I hope so…"

Peter bit his thumb.

What _was_ it that Sirius was concealing?

If it were a secret between only Sirius and James, that would be one thing—the two of them had a privileged relationship, after all. He and Remus never openly talked about this fact, but they had both intuitively grasped early on in school that they were apart from 'Sirius and James'—later, 'Padfoot and Prongs'.

All three of them loved James best—but Sirius was and always would be _his_ favorite.

Whatever was going on now, though…Moony was a part of it, too. Why else would he have missed the chance to meet them here at the Leaky Cauldron? The four of them hadn't been together in _weeks,_ and the group as a whole probably mattered more to Remus than any of the rest of them.

This was bad.

 _("Do you want to get dinner tonight, Prongs?" Peter asked, forcing himself to take another sip of his gillywater. "Lily too?")_

If James, Remus and Sirius had a secret—it meant they were deliberately keeping it from _him_. One secret might turn to several. They might decide they liked things better without him—it had been a fear that he had carried around since first year and never really been able to shake—that he was the tagalong, the fourth wheel, the one that everyone liked least.

 _("I wish I could, Peter…" His look was one of sincere regret. "Dumbledore has me doing something for him. I have to head out soon, too.")_

With his new position, being cut out was not a luxury he could afford.

 _("Well—let me know if you need me.")_

So, it followed, he had to find out what the secret was.

And he would.

* * *

"I know what you're doing tonight."

Sirius looked up at the reflection of the teenager stonily glaring through the mirror by the door of the room they were ostensibly sharing. He rolled his eyes. While he cared deeply about his younger brother—the last week had reminded him how much— _Lord_ , could Regulus annoy him sometimes.

At least in Grimmauld Place they each had their own room.

"Ever hear the expression, 'Little Porlocks have big ears', Reg?" he said, cooly, tucking the mission dossier and vial of potion in his dress robes. They hung loosely on him, for Svensson was at least three inches taller. "It applies here."

"I know what you're doing," Regulus repeated, snapping the door shut behind him. "And I'm not going to cover for you."

"What would I need you to cover for?" he asked, bored.

"The fact that you're going out tonight," Regulus said, crossly, plopping down on the bed.

Considering Sirius was putting the finishing touches on adjusting his cravat, it would have been difficult for him to pretend he didn't have a social engagement. That didn't stop him from snorting dismissively.

"In the hypothetical scenario that I _was_ leaving this flat," Sirius said, smoothing the front of his robes. "Why would I need you to cover? Our _charming_ parents are otherwise occupied this evening."

Regulus crossed his arms and looked up, his disapproval obvious. It was a look he had given his older brother from a very young age, and though he was basically inured to its effect, it had never really stopped irritating Sirius.

"And when they come over for dinner tomorrow," he insisted, watching Sirius cross to the dresser and pick up the pair of silver cufflinks. "I'm not going to lie and say you were here!"

Sirius spun around.

"Come on, Regulus," he said, dropping his disinterested act in favor of brotherly annoyance. "Just—do me this favor, won't you? All you have to do is say we spent the evening in reading—or playing chess, or whatever." Regulus continued to glare, and he added, weakly. "It's—it's nearly Christmas!"

This appeal to the season did not soften his brother.

"That reminds me." Regulus reached over to the bedside table and picked up an unassuming piece of parchment. He slid back over to the side of the bed and handed it to his brother.

Sirius stared around at the neat, familiar handwriting.

"What _is_ this?" he asked, despite being quite capable of reading and very aware of what it was.

His brother had just handed him his Christmas _shopping list_.

"Well, as I can't very well go out and get them," Regulus said, glumly. "I need you to…pick up a few things."

He laughed.

"Oh, come on, Reggie—given the current climate, I think we can probably forgo the gift exchange," Sirius snorted, eyes scanning the list with increasing amused disbelief. His brother had actually taken care to provide multiple 'appropriate options' for both parents.

When he looked up, he saw immediately in Regulus's eyes that this was not a joke.

"So at last it comes out," Sirius remarked, voice caustic. "The real reason you're in hiding—you wanted to fob buying all this off on me."

Regulus rolled his eyes and flopped back on the bed—a very Sirius-like action.

"Oh, yes, _that's_ what taking the Dark Lord's locket was about," his brother muttered, peevishly. Sirius ignored the remark in favor of inwardly marveling that Regulus knew the name of their mother's favorite perfume. "Getting stuck under the same roof as _you_ again is what I was aiming for all along."

"Careful, Reg—you're a guest in this house. Mind you don't get _lippy_ and overstay your welcome." Sirius looked up from the list. "Merlin, this is a lot. Whose gold am I supposed to be spending on all this rubbish?"

"Mine," Regulus huffed, clearly insulted. "Father said he'd take it out of my vault."

"You've talked about this with _Dad_ , already?"

"Yes—and _don't_ put it off till Christmas Eve when nothing good's left." Regulus frowned. "And I hope _you'll_ get them something as well."

The elder let out a bark of sarcastic laughter.

"Fat chance! Like they'd even want anything from me," Sirius crushed the parchment in his fist and shoved it in his pocket. "And as for Christmas Eve—I won't be doing shopping _then_. It'll just be you and me stuck here all day, remember?"

Annoyed, he tugged hard at the cravat and accidentally unknotted it.

"You're not doing that correctly," Regulus said, watching him fumble with the fiddly bit of cloth. "You have to slip the long bit under your collar, see?"

He stood up on the bed and walked to the end, where his brother stood, head brushing the top of the chandelier. Regulus reached over and pointed to the offending part of the cravat.

" _Thanks_ ," Sirius snapped, slapping his Reg's hand away. "If I needed your sartorial advice I'd ask for it."

Regulus glared and sat back down. Three years out of the family, and Sirius's younger brother could still recognize a 'mood' when he saw it, so he went back to silently observing his elder brother try and fail to fix his cravat—still leveling him with the look of disapproval.

Sirius ignored him. Regulus's list of presents had reminded his brother of the real source of his bad temper today—the holiday that was fast approaching.

James inviting him over to his and Lily's place had only worsened his mood this afternoon, because he knew that he would be spending _his_ Christmas Eve stuck babysitting the littlest Death Eater. Though, he reasoned—it could be worse. At least Orion and Walburga wouldn't be around. Absent their oppressive hovering, he was hoping he could convince Regulus to get into a drinking contest.

His brother was such a lightweight Sirius felt confident that, under the influence, he could get him to spill his guts just as easily as he would under truth serum.

Plus—it would funny to see Regulus get tight.

"Speaking of Christmas Eve—" Sirius continued, airily changing the subject—he'd finally gotten the damn neckerchief on. "Was wondering what you wanted to do. I was thinking I'd order _us_ Chinese in. You've never had it and it's brilliant—pairs nicely with Firewhisky, too."

He smiled grimly, imagining their mother's reaction to this suggestion—and what she would say if she ever saw sweet and sour pork.

Regulus fiddled with the coverlet of the bed.

"Hasn't Mother spoken…to you about Christmas Eve?"

"Maybe she has. I can't remember—I've started to selectively filter out what she says." Sirius shrugged. "But what's there to say? Their plans are always the same. And if it's only you and me here, well—might as well liven it up."

"Thing is—" Regulus hesitated. "I don't think she _wants_ to have the party at the house this year."

Sirius slowly turned around and stared at his brother, face expressionless.

"What are you talking about?"

The Black family Christmas Eve soirée at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London was the crown jewel of the family's social calendar. In the hundred and forty-seven years since the first of these parties was held, it had _never_ once been canceled.

This party was one of the many reasons he had never been allowed to stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays—attendance was absolutely and unequivocally mandatory for every Black, no exception. This had been drilled into him from such a small age that even now, years after he'd run away from home, Sirius still approached December the twenty-fourth with fatalistic dread, and usually spent most of that day sloshed out of his mind.

He still felt irrational guilt over ditching it.

"The Christmas Eve party," Regulus clarified. "I don't—think she wants to host it."

"Of course she will—I mean, is going to." Sirius lifted his hands and shook them. "They always do. Why would they?"

"Well, since I'm supposed to be in France, I think—I think the idea is Uncle Cygnus is going to host it instead."

"You think this," Sirius asked, and there was a slightly dangerous quality to his voice. "Or you _know_ this?"

"…She mentioned it the other night," he mumbled.

"So—if Cygnus and Aunt Dru are hosting, then—they're going to be there?"

Regulus shook his head, slowly.

"I'm fairly certain they plan on begging off, actually."

"To do…what?" Regulus grew more visible uncomfortable. "To be _where_?"

His younger brother didn't reply, but the expression on his face answered the question.

 _Here_. They planned on coming _here_.

"You don't mean—" Sirius's face twisted in horror. "I thought we were only going to have to spend Christmas Day—you mean we're going to have to spend _Christmas Eve_ with them as well?"

Regulus's apologetic look quickly turned back into a glare.

"It will be fine—even nice, if you bothered to try," Regulus scolded him. "Just stop harping on them for five minutes and be _polite_."

Sirius opened his mouth to argue with his brother—then snapped it shut again. He was not going to let Regulus distract him from what mattered right now—getting in the right headspace for this mission.

He had plenty of time to brood over his shite holiday in the next five days.

"Well, that settles it—you're _definitely_ covering for me tonight," Sirius said, turning back to the mirror and scowling at himself. "That'll be my Christmas gift from you—one solid lie."

His brother crossed his legs on the bed.

"What's _my_ Christmas gift, then?" Regulus asked, peevishly. "And I suppose you're just leaving me here to fend for myself, tonight."

"I am not, for your information." Sirius fixed on the cufflinks—he was ready. He stepped back from the mirror to admire the effect. Of course, in a few hours he would be a blond-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian, so it wasn't really worth scrutinizing—but it gave him an excuse to ignore Regulus a little longer. "I'm leaving you in the most capable hands I know."

There was a knock at the front door. Regulus flinched and turned around. He had not stopped doing that since the first night—Sirius wondered, bleakly, if Regulus _really_ expected the Death Eaters or Voldemort to knock before they came here to do him in.

"Stay here," he ordered, unnecessarily. "That's probably him now."

Thirty seconds later, James Potter—looking almost as irritated as Regulus—bustled into the flat and unceremoniously dumped his cloak on the sofa.

"What the _hell_ was your problem this afternoon?" James said, wiping his glasses—it had started to rain, clearly.

"Well, happy evening to you, too," Sirius said, sourly, slamming the door shut behind him. When he turned around James had already flung himself onto the couch.

"Seriously, Padfoot—I know this is rough for you, but you can't take it out on all the rest of us—"

"I don't have the time to talk about this with you right now," Sirius said, feeling himself growing surly again. First Regulus—now James. Would _no one_ give him a break?

"But—"

"Coast is clear, Regulus—why don't you come out and say hello!" Sirius called, eager to postpone the telling-off. James opened his mouth to protest, but Sirius silenced his best friend with a look.

"Later," he muttered.

There was the light padding sound of Regulus, in his socks, and a second later he appeared at the door and peaked into the room. The moment he clapped eyes on James, the younger boy scowled.

"What is _he_ doing here?" he demanded of his brother.

James wasn't bothered by the rudeness—which was good, as his best mate did nothing to correct it or apologize for it.

"I just told you I wasn't leaving you with no one," Sirius said, cooly studying his brother, pointedly ignoring the rather ugly look on Regulus's face. "James is going to to stay."

"I don't need a _babysitter_!"

"Just a minute ago you were complaining about me leaving you here alone," Sirius remarked, ironically.

"That was before—" Regulus stopped himself, then forced his eyes to meet James's. His brother's friend gave him a steady, neutral look. "Potter."

Like a tap being turned off, he switched—expression cool and haughty, all Black reserve and haughtier, not the teenaged boy who'd been arguing with his brother a minute before.

"Regulus," James said back, though in a less curt voice. Whatever grudge the younger boy held against him—and even he was not so naive as to think it was over their Quidditch rivalry in school, though that certainly played its part—he did not return Sirius's brother's ire.

This was not the first time that the younger Black brother had seen James Potter since becoming his best friend's unlikely house guest. James had flitted in and out of the flat—usually meeting his wife, always when Sirius had assured him that Mr. and Mrs. Black would not be there—but the two of them had not been alone since Reg's defection from the Death Eaters, and that was as much by Sirius's design as it was Dumbledore's.

His little brother severely disliked James—and in a far more personal way than their parents, after six years of school with together. Sirius was only now beginning to grasp the reason for it.

Lily kept telling him that Regulus saw James as his "replacement", and as absurd as that idea was—could their be a more striking contrast than Prongs and Reggie?—he couldn't deny that envy and resentment were mixed into every hostile look.

Well—they would have the whole night to sort it out between them.

"Great. You've been reacquainted," Sirius said, flatly, gathering up stray papers from the coffee table. "I'm sure you'll have a pleasant evening."

Sirius was eager to be shot of both of them.

"Why're you dressed like that?" James asked, looking away from the shorter boy to take in what his friend was wearing. The dress robes were over-the-top, but the fur-trimmed sleeves and cap were nothing _Orion_ would have worn, and every time James had seen Sirius in robes the past week, they had been his father's.

"I'm not at liberty to get into it at the present time," Sirius said, airily. He checked in his interior pocket that he had his flask of Polyjuice Potion for about the fourth time.

Regulus let out a hard, humorless laugh.

"Don't you know where he's going?" he sneered at James. "I thought it was obvious."

Sirius turned and gave his brother a rather condescending look.

"What's 'obvious'?" he asked, staring down his nose at the shorter boy, still standing in the doorway.

Regulus hesitated—but only for a moment.

"That you and that _Auror_ Frank Longbottom think you're going to sneak into Malfoy Manor tonight in disguise."

Sirius's face flushed, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his brother, who now looked somewhere between fierce and petrified at his own daring.

"Well, well—a week of 'mum's the word, I don't know anything,'" Sirius said, silkily. "And suddenly you're a wealth of Death Eater intel."

"You're just not very good at keeping your mouth shut, that's all," Regulus shot back, coldly. "Why _else_ would you have asked Father if Lucius was coming to the party at dinner last night? You're _so_ obvious."

But Sirius was not interested in his brother's perfectly reasonable explanation—or admitting the fault was his own indiscretion. James remained glued to the couch—eyes flitting between the brothers.

"What do you know about tonight?"

"Nothing," Regulus retorted, but his eyes flitted down evasively. "All _I_ know is that you're being an idiot. You're going to get caught."

"If you really think that, tell me what you know," Sirius pressed, with growing frustration. "You can help me end this. Unless you _want_ to be stuck in my flat for the rest of your life."

"You think you're invincible, Sirius," Regulus said, crossing to his brother, and he actually pulled out his wand. "But you've no idea what you're up against."

It was the most candid Regulus had been with Sirius since the night he'd brought the locket, but Sirius couldn't help but lash out at the implication he couldn't handle himself—from Regulus, of all wizards.

"I'm know what I'm doing," he said, coldly.

"When have you _ever_ known what you were doing?"

"D'you think you're really in a position to be lecturing other people on bad life decisions, Reg?" Sirius asked, coolness punctuating every word. "With the company you've been keeping?"

"Maybe you should look to the company _you've_ been keeping."

Regulus's eyes flicked to James, still sitting on the couch watching them, expressionless. Potter didn't even blink, but for Sirius, it was impossible to miss the implication.

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?" he snarled.

"Nothing—just," Regulus's voice faltered. "You've been lucky up until now—and you don't know how much they hate you."

"I've got a pretty good idea, actually," he laughed, carelessly.

"Well, it's going to get you killed!"

"Then at least I'll have died for something—"

"—Leaving me to clean up your mess, as _usual_!" his brother snapped, his voice rising a decibel. "Explain to Mum and Dad what happened, when they find what's _left_ of you—if there even _is_ anything to find."

Sirius clenched his jaw—fresh out of comebacks.

Regulus turned on James, his sneer more pronounced than ever.

"You're his mate, aren't you? Since he refuses to listen to me, maybe he will _you_."

He turned back around, marched to the kitchen door and slammed it shut behind him. The muffled sound of the bedroom door being slammed followed closely.

There was a long period of silence. Sirius's best friend cleared his throat delicately and stood up.

"Erm—sorry about that." As his friend walked over, he threw James an apologetic look.

"It's fine, Sirius."

"It's really not." Sirius shook his head, ruefully. "He's going to be even more of a pain tonight than usual, I'm—"

"Padfoot—" James interrupted him, quickly. "Is that _really_ what you and Frank are doing tonight?"

He stared at the door for another long moment, then sighed. Was there any point in lying about it, now? If Reggie knew—he was still wrapping his mind around the plausibility of him having figured it out from a single question at dinner—why shouldn't he admit it to Prongs? He trusted James with his life. Dumbledore, Moody and Frank couldn't expect him to keep _this_ from his best friend.

"Yeah," he said, ruefully. "It is."

Prongs's reaction was immediate and could not have been more different than his little brother's.

"Damn—that's _brilliant_!" James said, his voice filed with envy. "How're you pulling it off? How're you getting in?"

Sirius pulled the flask out of his pocket and shook it in front of James's face.

"Polyjuice potion. Frank, too. It's near fool-proof, the plan."

That wasn't true, not by a long-shot: but to see James's expression now, Sirius felt like it might be. The glint in his best friend's eye was fast on the way to shoving Regulus's concern to the back of his brain, to only be examined after the deed was done—if ever.

"I wish I was going with you."

Sirius's saw the flash of that familiar grin, and he felt an immediate surge of affection for the bespectacled git with terrible hair. All the anger and resentment of the day was, if not forgotten, forestalled for the moment. Prongs had that effect on him.

He gave his friend a little pat on the shoulder.

"I'll tell you all about it when I get back tonight," he assured him, smirking deviously. James punched him on the arm.

"If you aren't caught, that is," James laughed.

Sirius joined in his laughter—the very idea was absurd, after all.

If the years of their friendship had taught him one thing—it was how to avoid getting caught.

* * *

"Good news about Narcissa, isn't it?"

Orion Black looked up from the glass of punch he'd been staring at for well over four minutes to meet a pair of eyes that were—like so many in the room—cold, gray, identical to his own, and watching him with an intentness he did not particularly care for.

It was a look he'd known his entire life—one only his father ever gave him.

"It is," he agreed, setting the untouched cup back on the table. "Overdue news."

Arcturus Black—slightly stoop-shouldered, dark hair elegantly gray at the temple—gave his only son a brittle smile and raised his hand, gesturing that he should follow.

Orion did so without comment. If his father wanted to speak to him, he had no choice.

They crossed the room, stopping at the back wall.

"You're not wrong. I _was_ starting to wonder—after four years, you know," Arcturus said, settling into the corner from which he was best situated to observe the throng of people. "—If there was something—amiss."

Orion snorted, amused.

"With the marriage?" he asked, voice dry. "I would hope not—not after she pushed so hard for it."

They exchanged knowing looks. Narcissa had been smitten with Lucius in a manner considered faintly indecent by much of the family, including her own father.

"True enough," Arcturus laughed. "Let's say I was concerned there might be—a deficiency."

' _With the groom_ ' was the unspoken end to _that_ sentence.

"He managed to produce a son on the first go, at least," Orion remarked, his eyes wandering over to the gaggle of women by the punch table. His niece stood at the center, her face flushed, an unmistakeable air of self-satisfaction hovering about her.

"That signifies nothing," Arcturus snapped, coldly. "All that matters is that one produces a son _eventually."_

This abrupt turn surprised Orion, and he turned sideways to look the Black patriarch. The older man's eyes were flinty.

He realized, with a start, that his father thought the idle comment—a throwaway one meant only to fill a gap in conversation—had been a suggestion of some deficiency in _him._

After all, Orion was nearly four years _younger_ than Lucretia.

"And of course—" Arcturus continued, his icy stare fixed steadily on Orion. "A son who is a disgrace to his family is far worse than even the most _mediocre_ daughter."

The intended meaning of this remark was like a glacier in Arctic waters—largely hidden beneath the surface, but blazingly obvious to anyone with the slightest bit of.

Orion gave his father an impassive nod. He was the last one who could argue with Arcturus on that score.

Particularly _now._

"I'm sure Narcissa will take great care that the Malfoy name is not…discredited," the younger Black replied, voice heavy with irony.

There was a long pause, then Arcturus raised a glass in the direction of the center of the hall and spoke in a smooth and perfectly personable tone.

"Walburga seems well," the old man said, his gaze traveling back to the grouping of women. "Though…distracted."

Orion followed his gaze and looked at his wife, in between two of her sisters-in-law.

"It's the boy," he answered, shortly. "She's—concerned."

It wasn't entirely a lie—but Arcturus Black knew it wasn't entirely the truth, either.

"Is that really it?" Arturus's eyes narrowed in the direction of his daughter-in-law. "Doesn't seem like her, somehow."

"Women—it's always the same," his son said, still staring at his wife. Druella was chattering in her ear, and she was plainly not listening to a word. "When it comes to their _sons_ , even the sensible ones fall to pieces."

"That's true," Arcturus murmured in agreement before taking another sip of his port. "Your mama used to fuss over you something terrible. I had to break her of it."

"Did you?" Orion said, vaguely. If that were true, Arcturus must've done it when he was still in his cradle. He had not a single memory of his mother doing anything that could be remotely described as 'fussing'. Melania had always done exactly as her husband told her, of course.

 _A wife who did as she was told_ , he thought, still watching his. Rather like a son who did as he was told, it was a novel concept for him.

"As for Regulus, and this marriage business—" His father's tone turned brisk and businesslike, and Orion knew instantly that _this_ was the real reason he'd been dragged to this remote spot, that up until now the small talk had been a perfunctory introduction to the meat of the audience. "Frankly, I am _astounded_ I wasn't consulted."

"I'm sorry, Father," Orion apologized on reflex—a habit born of a lifetime of cultivation. "It all happened rather suddenly."

" _Very_ suddenly—as you seem to have seen fit to ship him off in _the middle of the night_ ," Arcturus said, archly.

He didn't reply. He could read his father's tone well—no reply was necessary, and to talk back would be dangerous.

"As a consequence—you've left me at my own birthday party with no grandson."

Orion suppressed a snort, thinking of what Arcturus would be doing if Regulus _were_ here—browbeating the boy for being soft, no doubt.

"He was very sorry to miss it," he told his father, evenly. "I have a letter from him to that effect."

Arcturus's waved his hand impatiently, signaling in no uncertain terms that birthday greetings from Orion's son were of little importance.

"You should have insisted these people bring the girl here," Arcturus said, severely. "If it comes off, she'll have to move to England, anyway."

"Perfectly true," he said, masking his wariness.

"What was the surname, again?"

" _Melonponce_. It's the Provencal branch, I don't think you've met the parents."

"And I suppose the dowry being discussed is—substantial?"

"It is," Orion lied, smoothly. It wasn't a difficult lie. If he and Walburga were truly going to throw away the only son they had—in the larger family's eyes, at least—on a no-name house like the Melonponces, there would definitely be a large exchange of gold in the offing. "I will get your approval before anything's agreed to."

This answer, far from mollifying him, only seemed to displease Arcturus more.

"Gold isn't what that boy needs—not with the amount he's coming into, Orion," his father snapped. "What he needs is a girl with a _name—_ a real name. And one who preferably comes from good childbearing stock."

It made sense that on his father's birthday Arcturus would be preoccupied with his legacy, but that didn't make his son any less annoyed about the sniping that a Black son hadn't been born in nearly two decades, as if that was entirely _his_ fault.

"What would you have me do?" Orion said, and he didn't have to feign his impatience. "There aren't any of the right age in this country."

"I'm not opposed to a French chit—if the name and breeding are good enough. A Theriault or Vigouroux would suit perfectly well—from what I understand, the pureblood men are thin on the ground in France—he'd have his pick. If you'd spoken to _me_ you'd know you didn't even have to send him over."

"Why not?"

"They're already coming to us." Arcturus pointed one clawed hand back towards the gaggle of females. "See?"

Orion looked in the direction his father was pointing and frowned.

Narcissa was talking to a girl—brown hair, average height, utterly unremarkable from a distance—that if he had noticed at all, he would've assumed was one of her friends from school.

"Who is she?" he asked, turning back towards his father, knowing that he was expected to beg the question.

"A Battancourt—from one of the Norman branches," Arcturus remarked, with dispassion of a man talking about horse stock. "Eugenie Fawley's great-niece—freshly arrived from Rouen just yesterday."

Orion raised an eyebrow. The Battancourts were one of oldest and largest of the French magical families—in no small part due to their supposed propensity for producing fertile daughters and virile sons. They had a history of intermarrying with the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, which supposedly went back to before the Blacks had even been English—or so it was said.

But there hadn't been a Battanoncourt-Black union in at least two centuries, of that Orion was certain.

This particular Battancourt, upon closer inspection, was rather younger than his niece—she couldn't have been older than eighteen, barely out of the schoolroom. She appeared attentive enough to Cissy—though, as Narcissa and she were the only two young women in the room, it made sense that the _mademoiselle_ had been thrown in with her.

"So she's a quarter English, then?" Orion asked—his father nodded. The fact that the girl had a grandparent who was a Fawley made her mildly more interesting—he knew nothing of the northern branch of her French relations, but the Fawleys were purebloods of the first order. "How did she end up here?"

"Your father-in-law invited the aunt, I think. No doubt he felt pity for the spinster Fawley—living in the middle of Cornwall, all alone."

"And I suppose you've a point to make by drawing my attention to this girl?" his son asked, keeping the sarcasm out of his voice only with great difficulty. His father's expression blackened.

"Only this," he said, voice curt. "In terms of name _alone_ that chit is a far better match for Regulus than whatever Melonponce you have him bowing and scraping for."

"Well—if this marriage doesn't take, I'll keep that in mind," Orion said, voice tight, dragging his eyes away from the undoubtedly very silly girl he had no interest in whatsoever. "How are you enjoying your party, Father?"

" _Don't_ try to change to subject, Orion," Arcturus said, narrowing his eyes.

"What else have you to say?" his son replied, temper finally up. It was rare that he lost his ironclad control, but the last week had tested his patience like none other in his life.

"About your slip of a son getting married? Plenty." The Elder Black took another long drink from his goblet. "He's far too young. You should wait a few years. Some English girls will come of age and be suitable. The Greengrasses have a few girls who must be fourteen or fifteen now—better Regulus marry youth than wisdom, I'd say."

The pointed sneer in his voice was too pronounced not to be a deliberate jab at his son—whose wife, the wife Arcturus had selected for him, was four years his senior.

"I'm not disagreeing," Orion replied, curtly. "Only it's an idea of Walburga's—"

"Stop indulging your wife's every whim, then!" his father cut him off, sharply. Orion started, surprised by the vehemence in the older wizard's voice.

"I would hardly describe a mutual decision for the benefit of _our_ family an 'indulgence," he said, rather cooly. Arcturus was either in a bad temper or in his cups—possibly both, to be speaking to Orion this way.

"You let her get her way far too often—and you _do_ indulge her," his father sneered. "Pollux told me she has some absurd notion that the family is not having Christmas Eve at Grimmauld Place this year."

Orion resisted the urge to rub his temple. Of course his father-in-law had spread the news around—he must've heard it from Walburga's brother, the only one they'd floated the idea to. Cygnus never could resist the urge to needle him—the temptation to spread gossip that solicitous around was too great at a family affair of this size.

His father was taking it about as well as one would expect.

"It was only an idea we had—"

"She can forget it," Arcturus said, flatly. "We have _never_ not had the Christmas Eve celebrations at Grimmauld Place, and I see no reason why we wouldn't this year. You will kindly tell her if she's in such an _uproar_ over the loss of her son's company that she can't comport herself as a wife and hostess, she should have her husband recall him from France for the occasion."

A long silence followed this bloodless pronouncement.

"Is there anything _else_ , sir?"

"Yes—if you _really_ intend to marry Regulus off," his father said, icily. "Then I trust you've got the estate and will in order—everything made right?"

"I've an interested party looking into the matter as we speak," Orion replied, cryptically. "It'll be dealt with before any marriage."

"Good. You've been putting that off far too long, anyway—" His eyes narrowed. "And don't think I don't know why."

"I don't know what you mean, Father."

Arcturus turned towards him, his sneer more pronounced than ever.

"Your _wife_ isn't the only one in this family with sentimental notions about sons."

His father drained his goblet and tossed it, carelessly, on the floor. Orion watched it fall to the ground and roll under a table. An elf appeared, almost immediately, to pick it up and clean the dregs of wine off the stone. His father hadn't noticed and didn't care—he doubted Arcturus Black had noticed the presence of a house-elf he hadn't called for himself in at least forty years.

"I trust you understand me, Orion."

"Perfectly," Orion said, in the mildest voice imaginable. His father stepped back from the wall, apparently to rejoin his birthday party, the friendly conversation over and done with. His only son had never in his life been happier to see the back of him—and then Arcturus turned around, presumably to deliver the final blow.

"One more thing—" He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I want you to do me a favor."

That meant he was to do what his father said, of course.

"What is it?"

"Keep a sharp eye out."

"For what?"

"Gatecrashers." He pronounced the word with distaste. "I've been reliably informed some might turn up."

The idea that someone would dare was bewildering to his son—but they lived in a bewildering age.

"How could they possibly get it?" Orion asked, lowering his own voice. They were still alone on this side of the room. "Doesn't he have secrecy sensors?"

"I gather he has them calibrated for blood. If it were mudbloods or half-bloods trying to sneak in, we'd know at once." Arcturus's mouth flattened. "Blood traitors are another matter. They're always harder to suss out—so I need you to be watchful."

"And what am I looking for, exactly?" Orion said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. Arcturus pretended not to notice it.

"Anything unusual. If they do manage to get in the door, they shouldn't be hard to spot. After all—" Arcturus shrugged. "—It won't be anyone from _our_ family."

And with that the old man, spritely for seventy-eight, turned and walked over to join the other elder statesman present, who was waving at him merrily from across the hall.

The unlikely host of his birthday party: Abraxas Malfoy, whose Wiltshire manor they were all currently standing in.

He'd have been spared this new drama if the family had remained in Suffolk, Orion thought, bleakly, as he looked out over the magnificent main hall of the stately manor where his family—and a few of Narcissa's in-laws' friends and relations—were milling about. The Malfoys' ballroom was already decorated for Christmas, with a 12-foot-tall tree at every corner, handsome silver and gold ornaments sparkling in the candlelight of a hundred floating tapers.

All the guests—save him and his wife—were in high spirits.

Every other Black had been positively thrilled at the last minute change in the arrangements, but Orion, ever the cynic, saw the gesture for what it was. What his father's friend and sometimes-rival had done was akin to crowing—though he claimed spiriting the Blacks away from _Noire_ House was an act of goodwill in honor of his grandson's impending birth and the great friendship between their two families, Arcturus and his son knew better.

Friendship indeed—Orion could have laughed. The Malfoys and the Blacks might do business together, socialize—even occasionally inter-marry—but they weren't _friends_.

Abraxas's idea of 'friendship' was rubbing this unborn child—the elusive Malfoy heir and continuation of the dynasty—in Arcturus's face, and his father had seen fit to take out his displeasure on his _own_ son. It might've been an evening of entertainment at the Malfoys' expense, but Orion was the one paying the price—for now he had been given a task that by all accounts should have been Lucius's—making sure these intruders were dealt with quickly and quietly.

He looked around the room, wondering what his father's 'source' of information was. Who would dare infiltrate a room full of the members of the two greatest wizard clans in Britain?

Orion's eyes fell on his father, deep in conversation with the elder Malfoy—he was laughing—and briefly fantasized about how quickly Arcturus's preening expression would change if he were to be told where his younger grandson _really_ was. How would he react upon learning that Walburga was using Phineas Nigellus's portrait to pass messages to Albus Dumbledore, a wizard whose views, philosophy and manners were antithetical to everything Arcturus held dear?

If his father knew _that_ he would probably keel over on the spot.

He pictured the old man gripping his chest, collapsing on the floor—and found the image of Arcturus's death far less disturbing than it ought to have been. It was actually perversely gratifying to imagine himself well shot of his father. He found it easier to control his anger at the old man for speaking to him—his grown son—as if he were a child straight out of the nursery.

Orion hadn't earned it. How _dare_ that cantankerous, cold-blooded old—

 _You're starting to sound like Sirius, now._

Orion pushed the treacherous thought aside and scowled. He needed a real drink—whisky. The wizard strode back towards the table where the refreshments were, determined to summon a servant if necessary.

God knows he needed to fortify himself for this interminable evening.

When he arrived at the long oak table there were no house-elves to be found anywhere. Thoroughly irritated, Orion served himself another cup of wassail, muttering curses under his breath—curses that were not directed at either Arcturus _or_ the absentee hosts of this damned party.

Mr. Black leaned back on the table and looked at the group of women, again. Walburga was talking to his sister, now—or rather, being talked at. Normally she was a veritable social butterfly—his wife never let other women control conversations, she was keenly aware that she held the highest social position of any of them in the family and was not afraid to exert it—but he could see even across the room how distant and distracted she was. Her mind wasn't here, and he knew exactly where it was.

It was back at the Lisson Grove flat with their two sons.

He had to give Sirius credit, Mr. Black thought, swirling his glass absently. He had a talent for making himself the center of attention—even three years gone.

All morning long he had been forced to listen to his wife's strictures against her firstborn—the low women she believed he was cavorting with, the stratagems she planned on using to stop it—until Orion had almost been glad for this blasted party, if only because it gave him a break from her incessant harping.

By Salazar, he thought, taking a swig of his drink, could Sirius rile Walburga up.

How could a boy as clever as _he_ be so stupid when it came to his own mother? He must've realized that she took his threats to marry a Muggle girl seriously. He _almost_ felt sorry for his son.

The key word was 'almost'.

Pity was, in truth, the last thing he would claim to feel, now. Pity was not something that came naturally to him, anway—not even self-pity, which he was veering dangerously close to. He no more wished to pity himself than the one he blamed for all of this.

For this _was_ all his elder son's fault, in the end. It had occurred to Orion the night all of this had begun, and once he had the idea, nothing could dislodge it.

If Sirius hadn't run away from home, _none_ of this would have happened.

Orion's certainty on this point was unequivocal—without knowing quite the reason why, he knew it, and it made his anger far more potent. He could date everything that had gone wrong in his life in the past three years, everything that had lead them to this point in time—to that single event. No rational argument—and he had made many in his own head, spent hours arguing with himself over it—could sway Mr. Black.

If his life was like a watch—precisely ordered, exact—three years ago it had been dropped from a great height, and no amount of replacement springs or fiddling would make it run right again. The blow had left permanent damage.

A simple, neat and clean explanation that allowed him to singularly focus his anger—and conveniently ignore that the feelings of intense disappointment did not naturally tend in that direction.

 _"_ _I thought I was preempting you."_

He set the cup back down on the table, the taste in his mouth soured.

That wasn't the only thing his stubborn son had said of late that was haunting Orion. He had been turning Sirius's outburst from dinner over in his mind all day. As much as he had taken great pleasure in ordering the insolent boy to be silent, he had to admit that his son was _right_. What they were doing now was hardly sustainable.

The cracks were already beginning to show.

He should have known his father would lash out over the supposed marriage—Arcturus was probably very close to actually forbidding it out of spite, and ordering his son to recall his grandson from the Continent. The best-case scenario would be several weeks of protracted fictional negotiations—and then Regulus would be expected to return to England to present his fiancée. There was no such witch.

They had a Christmas reprieve. He stared down into his glass, gloomily.

January would be bleak.

"You look as though you could use something rather stronger."

The soft drawl in his ear startled Orion out of his thoughts.

"Am I that obvious?" he asked, dryly, turning to the young man he had not even noticed approach him.

Lucius Malfoy, resplendent in black velvet and smiling faintly, held out a goblet to the older wizard. Orion took it and looked down at the rich mahogany liquid.

Lucius's eyes lingered on the punch bowl.

" _That_ was put out for the ladies."

Orion nodded and took a drink from the goblet. It warmed his chest.

"Better?"

"Infinitely."

They stood together in comfortable silence. It gave Orion time to study his nephew by marriage unabated. At twenty-five, Lucius was everything the Malfoy heir should be: married to a witch of impeccable reputation and breeding—Orion had never had much attachment to any of his nieces, but he could hardly deny that Narcissa was at least the best behaved—who was now pregnant with a male heir. He was poised to take over his elderly father's holdings, the best-respected pureblood wizard of his age.

Once upon a time Orion had been in much the same position. Alas—pride before the fall, always. He told himself that was where the source of his disquiet over Lucius originated from—and not any irrational dislike he might've felt for the younger wizard.

Looking so smugly pleased with himself in the Malfoy family seat, it was difficult not to think of Sirius's less than flattering descriptions of him as being rather apt.

"I was very sorry not to see Regulus, this evening," Lucius said, breaking the silence.

"You weren't the only one," Orion said, his smile mainly ironic. Lucius followed his gaze in the direction of their fathers, still deep in conversation.

Lucius paused—considered his next words carefully.

"Narcissa was…surprised to hear about the possibility of a marriage," he drawled, casually. "As was I. We assumed it would be several years off still."

His uncle said nothing.

"How are the negotiations?"

Orion snorted. Apparently everyone in this family thought the business of who Regulus married was their affair.

"They're…progressing," he answered, vaguely.

Subtext: not well, and Lucius, in a uncharacteristic misread of the situation, took it as an opening.

"Narcissa is inordinately fond of him, you know—and like many women happily married, wishes everyone else the same."

Lucius's eyes rested on his wife and he smiled, fondly. The look did not go unnoticed by the woman's uncle. Whatever his less desirable qualities, Orion thought, at least Lucius's affections for his young wife were sincere.

When the younger Malfoy turned back to the older wizard, his expression was smooth as silk again.

"I've been bid to tell you that, should his current venture fall short, she is happy to suggest her new friend, Mademoiselle Battancourt, as an alternative."

Not even having been introduced to this Battancourt girl, and already Orion felt predisposed to dislike her.

"It seems after only a short time married," he observed, caustically. "You've come to see the wisdom of keeping a wife _placated_ by doing as you're told."

Lucius chuckled.

"Guilty. It's a silly idea, I'm sure—" He sipped from his drink again. "I didn't see the harm in passing it on: and now I can say honestly that I have."

"Not _so_ silly. She and my father are of the same mind, actually."

"Oh?"

"He is…old-fashioned. He believes a name is more important than a dowry."

"I hope you didn't argue, sir."

Orion's expression turned rather cold.

"A mere—disagreement," he remarked, annoyed at the assumption of familiarity between them. At least Lucius had enough sense not to call Orion 'uncle'—they were only related by marriage, after all.

Lucius took a deep drink from his own glass, and Orion took his own opening.

"I understand we're to expect unwanted guests," he remarked, evenly. Lucius choked on his wine. "Two of them, he said."

Lucius recovered quickly.

"My father knows how to keep a secret—"

"—About as well as mine," Orion finished for him, not without humor. Lucius's smile did not meet his eyes. "He told me no particulars, only to keep a sharp eye out. You've nothing to fear from me."

"I wouldn't concern yourself with it, Orion," Lucius reassured him, smoothly—too smoothly for his liking. Orion could hear the dismissal implicit—and it stirred both his interest and his pride. "If there _are_ intruders, they will be…dealt with. And in all honesty…" His lip curled. "I have doubts about my source of information."

Unlike his niece's husband, Orion was not so green as to press for further information on that point.

"I must admit," he continued, keeping his voice purposefully bland. "I find it hard to believe there are wizards foolhardy enough to try to deceive a man such as your father—or yourself."

Malfoy laughed and swirled his drink, the very picture of well-bred urbanity.

"Alas, I'm afraid these days there are _many_ such fools."

Mr. Black couldn't help but notice how coldly unamused the younger man looked as he said those words.

* * *

"I thought you said there were only going to be a few people here," Sirius muttered to Frank. "This line is taking forever."

"Shut _up,_ " Frank hissed and jabbed him in the ribs. "You don't speak English, remember?"

He bit back the sharp retort as the line of guests waiting to get into Malfoy Manor moved forward.

 _Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open._ That was the inner mantra Sirius had come up with for tonight. He didn't have to say anything, which made his part of this job far easier than Frank's, as Svensson's 'friend' Frederick Klöcker—business partner and lackey— _he_ would be doing the talking and 'translating' for him in every social interaction.

The thickset blond man of thirty-two whose skin Sirius was currently inhabiting spoke little English, was of a purportedly shy nature (though from the report Sirius had read, he seemed to have a never-ending string of mistresses) and had an astronomical amount of money.

It was Frank's job to sell the idea that they were trustworthy enough to be let into the room where the target would be supposedly passing the information.

All Sirius had to do was shut up and _listen_.

He was beginning to understand why Moody was reluctant to give him this assignment—he wasn't particularly good at either of those things.

"Invitations?"

Frank held out the gilded cards to the door-wizard—a oily-voiced elderly man that Sirius would have taken for a servant if he didn't know that the Malfoys kept house-elves.

"They are genuine, you will find," Frank said, with a heavily-accented voice. His partner had been told not to speak unless spoken to by a clear equal, and then to only say 'yes', 'no', or look to Frank for a translation, so Sirius merely fixed the door-wizard with a look of utmost contempt. It wasn't difficult—he had a rather shifty and unpleasant demeanor. He looked vaguely familiar—Sirius thought he might've been guarding the door at Cissy's wedding.

The wizard eyed them with suspicion—perhaps because of their foreign appearances—but he took the gold cards from Frank's hand without comment. He waved a wand over them, and the pink glow of the spell clearly indicated their authenticity, for when he looked up his oily smile had turned gracious.

"Mr. Svensson, is it?" he asked, in a manner meant to ingratiate.

"Mr. Klöcker," Frank said, cooly. "This is Mr. Svensson. I trust the host is expecting us, _yah_?"

The wizard bowed them into the antechamber—the front doors closed behind them, and as soon as they were shut, a heavy chain came up and snaked its way around lock, bolting it firmly shut.

"He is. Everyone is in the ballroom."

"Ballroom?" Frank repeated, as they followed the doorman down the handsome, carpeted hallway. A series of impressive portraits of blond witches and wizards stared down at them as they glided through. "We were told—there were to be no ladies."

"A—last minute alteration in plans," their guide said, courtesy dripping from every word. "Do not worry, gentlemen—Mr. Malfoy has not changed his intentions where the _planned festivities_ are concerned. You will merely be treated to more engaging company."

The heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom swung open to reveal the glittering hall, decorated sumptuously for Christmas. The man bowed them inside with a promise that their host would see to them shortly, and shut the ballroom doors again.

Instead of ten or twenty guests, there was something closer to eighty witches and wizards milling about the magnificent ballroom of Malfoy Manor. A long food and drink table stood on the far side of the hallway. Fairies hovered about the four Christmas trees, each situated at a corner of the hall. A string quartet was playing, all on its own, next to a raised dais.

A wave of immediate, inexplicable dread rolled over Sirius.

He turned back towards the door and faced Frank. The Auror was also surprised—but Longbottom was trained to adapt to any circumstance, and he was clearly already evaluating their options in light of the new development.

"I don't like this," Sirius hissed in his partner's ear. "This isn't what we were promised."

They'd been in the room for two seconds and he was already panicking—what was wrong with him?

"We need to scope it out before we jump to any conclusions," the older man soothed. "More people could make this job easier for us."

"I'm telling you, there's something _not right_ —"

"Pardon _me_."

Very slowly, Sirius turned around to face the intruder into their private conversation.

At the sight of her, his entire body went rigid.

The witch was tall and fashionably dressed, a dark-haired woman of about fifty-five, with a glittering diamond clutch in one hand. She surveyed the pair of them cooly.

Frank looked between the witch and Sirius—who looked as shocked as a deer about to be run over by a train—with bewilderment.

"I am sorry, madam?" Frank said, glancing sideways at Sirius. He was gaping unabashedly at the woman in shock, and the rudeness of it had drawn her attention. "We did not hear you."

"I said, _pardon me_ ," the witch huffed impatiently, her eyes narrowing a fraction. "You're blocking the door."

"Yes—excuse us, madam." Frank nodded stiffly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius do the same—even more stilted and awkward than he was, if that was possible. "No offense was meant by it."

Black had gotten so into his character that he was apparently incapable of speech—for all he did was gape. Frank kicked his companion, and Sirius stepped mechanically out of the way and watched as the woman marched past them and into the hallway, looking haughty as she did so.

"Who _is_ that?" Frank asked, as soon as the door shut behind her. Sirius was still staring, glassy-eyed, looking as though someone had died. "Do you know her?"

"Her name is…Lucretia Prewett," he answered, automatically.

"Prewett?" Frank repeated, surprised. "Like Gid and Fabe?"

"She's their aunt," he informed Frank, woodenly. "But she shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"She's supposed to be in Suffolk, that's _fucking_ why."

He knew what that feeling had been when they entered the ballroom—damn it, he had recognized that feeling.

It couldn't be.

He spun around and scanned the hall—everywhere his eyes looked confirmed the awful truth.

The room was _teaming_ with them. There wasn't a single huddled group of party-goers absent at least one tall, dark-haired tosser.

And then his eyes fell on the person he'd been dreading the most—there, in the center of it all, deep in conversation with Abraxas Malfoy, looking just as ageless and self-satisfied as ever, a crowd of sycophantic courtiers hovering about him—just the picture his grandson had in mind the previous evening, in fact.

The patriarch of the Black family, his paternal grandfather: Arcturus Black.

 _Fuck._

"We've got to get out of here, Frank," he said, pulling the other man close to him so he could whisper. "Now."

"Why?"

"Because this place is _crawling_ with them."

"Death Eaters?"

"No—even _worse_."

Someone began to clink a champagne glass—and an echoing wave followed, everyone in the hall delicately chiming their crystal to hush the room for a toast.

Abraxas climbed onto the dais, and to Sirius's horror—though not shock—his grandfather followed.

The room fell into a reverent hush.

"Welcome, welcome all," the Master of the house addressed them, voice pleased and preening. "Thank you for coming to this—impromptu celebration. We are gathered here to celebrate the most important of all things: the birth of wizards of pureblood."

Sirius slowly backed towards the door. Frank held him fast by his arm.

"I am to expect a grandson in the early summer, as you know," Abraxas drawled, looking about the sea of faces. Many of them must've smiled back, for he looked pleased at what he saw. "And it is thanks, in no small part, to the man at my right—who allowed my son to steal away one of the many glittering jewels of his family—my daughter-in-law, Narcissa."

The room tittered appreciatively at this quip, and Arcturus nodded to Cissy, who curtsied back to him, her face flushed with pleasure.

"His family—and hers—are my special guests this evening, which as many of you know is an important occasion." There was a smattering of polite laughter. "In honor of his birthday—and the newest addition to both of our houses—I ask that everyone in the room raise their glass to my dearest friend—"

He gestured, with one gnarled hand, to the man at his right, and then raised his goblet high.

"—To Arcturus Black."

Everyone in the room—even Frank, who had managed to grab a glass of champagne from a passing tray—also raised their glasses.

Everyone but Sirius, who was still staring around the room, searching frantically for the two people he hoped for and dreaded even more than his grandfather.

"— _To Arcturus Black_ ," the guests echoed, a monotonous thunder.

Sirius had a sudden prickling on his neck: another feeling he recognized, the sensation of being observed by one person. His searching about the hall became more frantic.

As every other person in the room drank deeply from their glasses, their eyes met.

His father, Orion Black, glass still aloft in the air, the toast clearly forgotten—was staring right at him.

"…Blacks."


	3. Chapter 3

_'_ _Come on, Harry, haven't you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?' said Sirius testily._

 _\- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

"Is that—?"

"—My grandfather—and every _other_ Black in the entire effing country?" Sirius finished for him, in a frantic whisper. "What do you think I've been trying to _tell_ you?"

It was with great physical effort that Sirius forced himself to look away from Orion—who had held the stare for a half-second, no longer than anyone else would upon meeting eyes unexpectedly with a stranger.

"They're supposed to be in Suffolk at my granddad's place, they must've changed the plan at the last second. _Damn_." Sirius dragged him closer to the door. "We have to get out of here before someone recognizes me—"

Frank steered him out of the alcove and into the room, his grasp gentle but firm.

"Black—calm down. Think about this for a minute rationally," Frank muttered. There was nothing jovial about him now—his voice were serious and steely, the Auror who had been working under Mad-Eye Moody for nearly a decade. "They have no reason to recognize you. You're a massive blonde Norwegian right now."

"You wouldn't be saying that if they were all _Longbottoms_ —!" Sirius looked around and his face fell like a house of cards. "Oh, great—King _Git's_ spotted us."

Lucius Malfoy was, indeed, striding towards the two men, wearing an expression of lordly beneficence to match his velvet robes.

"Ah, Mr. Svensson—!" Malfoy's cold gray eyes turned to Frank—his stare decidedly chilly. "And, Klöcker, wasn't it?"

The carefully cultivated pause said everything they needed to know about Mr. Malfoy's opinion of the man Frank was impersonating. Longbottom didn't let it bother him.

"Well met, sir." Lucius's smile was cold.

"We were beginning to think you weren't coming."

"Ah, yes—Mr. Malfoy. We got held up with business, you see?" Frank said, all modest apology—and he bowed.

Malfoy ignored him, and he stepped past Frank towards Sirius, and smiling smugly, held out his hand.

Sirius chanced a glance down at it—a diamond signet ring glittered on his index finger—and the looked back up into the pale, pointed face, waiting with studied expectation for the handshake between equals.

In the body of Nicolaus Svensson, Sirius was a good deal taller than Malfoy—if he had been in his own, they would have been the exact same height. He had not seen Narcissa's husband up close since the summer he had run away, and so he took a moment to study him now. Marriage and the escalating war suited Lucius, for he looked sleek and well-pleased in his Christmas finest, surrounded by the splendor of the Malfoy family pile.

A more self-satisfied _prick_ had never been born, in Sirius's estimation.

He suppressed his natural urge to unleash a look of scorn and took the outstretched hand Lucius offered.

"Yah, _Herr_ Malfoy." He squeezed a smidgen too tightly before releasing it. "Ist—good to see you—again."

"And you."

According to the dossier, Svensson and the Malfoys had met only one other time—and it had been brief, an exchange of pleasantries meant to pave the way for potential business partnership in future. Sirius knew Lucius well enough to see his familiar manner for what it was—ingratiating, but not built on any real personal history between the two men.

Lucius's eyes glittered. The look was rather shrewder than it might've been, and it made the younger man uneasy. Sirius took care not to blink or break eye contact first, and so it fell to Malfoy to do so.

He stepped back from the two men and gestured to the ball room, all hospitality.

"My father will be delighted to see you again. Can I get you and your…friend—drinks?" Lucius snapped his fingers, and an elf appeared at his right with two goblets. Both men took the goblets and pretended to drink. They were not supposed to let anything interfere with their wits, though Sirius thought a swig of wine right now would help steady his nerves. "Come and meet my wife—she's just over here, talking with my mother-in-law."

Frank leaned over, as if to translate, and muttered into Sirius's ear:

" _Just follow my lead and stick to the plan._ "

" _You_ cannot _leave me alone out there_ ," Sirius hissed back, but the other man was already straightening up. " _Promise me you_ —"

"He would be delighted," Frank said, smoothly, stepping hard on Sirius's foot under his heavy dress-robes. "As would I."

Sirius didn't chance a sideways look at his partner. He let their gracious host lead them to a circle in the center room where a number of ladies stood. The second their faces came into view, he inwardly groaned.

It had to be _them_.

In the center of the group stood Narcissa Malfoy, her platinum blond hair up in an elegant knot—the hostess and _belle_ of the ball. Like Lily, his cousin was only just beginning to show signs of pregnancy—her red gown delicately draping over the small bump—but there _was_ a glow about her cheeks Sirius had never seen before. On her right stood her mother, Druella Rosier Black—also blond, her long, pale fingers resting on Cissy's shoulder, ready at a moment's notice to steer her favorite daughter into view. On Narcissa's left was a younger girl, a brunette he did not immediately recognize—maybe she was a Malfoy cousin—Sirius passed over this nonentity, for on _her_ left, looking rather distracted and staring haughtily into the middle-distance, was his _mother,_ Walburga.

Sirius gulped.

"Ah—a family party, I see." Lucius clasped his hands together. "Introductions are in order, I think. Narcissa, ladies—you will forgive Mr. Svensson his language barrier, I trust? Your charms are truly beyond words."

Narcissa and her mother smiled, the younger girl forced something timid that ended up looking more like a grimace. Walburga didn't even bother pretending to find Lucius's comment amusing.

Malfoy introduced Sirius and Frank to each of the women in turn—he bowed, mechanically, to his aunt, his cousin and her friend—she _must've_ been a Slytherin, probably in Regulus's year— the names and relationships barely registering. When he turned at last to his mother, Sirius had a moment of inner panic, and it took real effort to keep the dull expression plastered on his face. To his relief, Mrs. Black didn't seem particularly interested in the tall, surly Norwegian. She barely met his eye, and her curtsy was cold and perfunctory.

"We arrived just in time to hear that we are to offer you congratulations, Mrs. Malfoy," Frank said, when the introductions were finished.

"Yes, isn't it wonderful news?" Cissy's mother said, breathlessly. "A son, we could not be more thrilled—"

"—And to think," a voice observed, wryly, from behind Sirius. "It only took _four years_ of marriage."

Druella flushed and dropped her hand from her daughter's shoulder. Lucius's sleek smile turned glacial.

"Ah," he said, cooly. "Lucretia."

Sirius and Frank both turned their heads—it was the elegant woman that had slipped out of the hall when they arrived. She stepped into the circle and took her place on Walburga's other side.

Malfoy cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen—may I introduce Mrs. Lucretia Prewett? Mrs. Prewett is our Aunt Walburga's sister-in-law." Lucius had dropped his obsequious manner: it was obvious he didn't much care for Mrs. Prewett, and if her droll smile was anything to go on, the feeling was mutual. "Lucretia—this is Mr. Svensson and his—associate, Mr. Klöcker."

"Oh," Lucretia said, her eyes sparkling with wit, and she turned to face the only other men in the circle. "So you're guests? I thought you were hired to guard the door."

Frank's smile was gracious—Lucius's less so. Sirius noticed his mother's eyes flashing, a sure sign that she, too, was annoyed at her flamboyant sister-in-law.

"You're a rather strapping man, aren't you, Mr. Svensson?" Lucretia looked him over, frankly. "From whence do you hale—a woodland glen in the far north?"

Sirius forced himself to stay as composed as Frank was—it was difficult, when Lucius and his mother looked so irritated. He groped around in his mind for the Norwegian phrases he had spent half the night memorizing, trying to ignore the teasing, flirtatious look his own aunt was giving him.

He was not getting paid enough for this.

"Erm— _jeg forstår ikke,_ Fru Prewett—"

"My friend hales from Norway, Mrs. Prewett," Frank stepped in. "And I'm afraid his English is—not so good."

She gave Frank a rather feline smile.

"Well—speaking is overrated, anyway." Mrs. Prewett turned her flirtatious gaze on Frank. "Don't you agree, Mr. Klöcker?"

"Oh, _really_ , Lucretia!" her sister-in-law scolded. "Control yourself, won't you?"

"I'll have you know, I am a model of self-possession," Lucretia said, innocently.

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from laughing at the look of scornful disapproval on Walburga's face.

Lucius cleared his throat and looked around the room. Sirius noticed his gray eyes were scanning the crowd, looking for someone. He wondered if it was the same someone he and Frank were looking for: but then they stopped on old Abraxas, waving impatiently at his only son.

"Ah—I see my father beckoning. You don't mind, do you, dearest?" Lucius turned to his wife. "You'll amuse our guests while I…attend to him?"

"Of course not, dear," Narcissa said, neutrally. She didn't look too enthralled at being left with these foreign wizards, but her husband's look stymied all comment to that effect. Frank cleared his throat.

"Pardon me, Mr. Malfoy—would you mind if I joined?" he said, hesitantly. "I wanted a word with you and your distinguished father…alone."

Longbottom was almost as smooth as that slippery Malfoy tosser, Sirius thought, watching the Frank work on Lucius with mild awe. There was just enough suggestion in the tone for him to take the bait. Like any Malfoy, he had a nose for when gold was in the offing, and Frank was the apparent mouthpiece for the taciturn and dull-witted Svensson, he of the piles of prime European real estate.

If Frank was the mouthpiece, he had more power in this situation than Svensson did—theoretically.

"Of course, Klöcker," he drawled, thoughtfully considering the other man. "We'd both be…delighted."

"I'm much obliged to you, sir." He looked over at his companion, who was fighting desperately from showing the inner panic. "Let me tell my friend I am to leave him with these charming ladies."

Frank leaned over to Sirius's shoulder and whispered:

" _I'm going to get us in this game. Find out if he's here, will you?_ "

Sirius nodded.

" _I'll catch you up later. As soon as you know, find me._ "

Frank pulled away and gave him a pat on the shoulder. He tried to feel as reassured as he should—Longbottom knew what he was doing, had not lost his cool, and the mission was right now going exactly as planned. There was nothing to worry about, truly.

He could deal with the complication of his family being here: he just needed to keep his head.

Still, it was with a heavy heart that he watched Frank and Lucius Malfoy walk away, leaving him alone and defenseless in a nest of female relations.

"I was only teasing, Narcissa dear, you know that, don't you?" Lucretia said, as soon as the other men were out of earshot. "I hope you weren't offended."

"Of course not," Narcissa said, coldly. "Don't be silly."

"Good. And anyway—" The older woman continued, matter-of-factly. "If there _was_ a problem, you can be sure it was with your husband, not you."

"Lucretia!" Druella gasped, giving her cousin by marriage a scandalized look and jerking her head in Sirius's direction, but the dark-haired woman looked unabashed.

"Oh, fiddle—he can't understand a word, remember?" Lucretia turned towards Sirius. "You don't know a blasted thing I'm saying to you, do you, Herr Svensson?

"Fru Prewett… _jeg forstår ikke_ ," Sirius repeated, thankful he could at least remember this one stupid Norwegian phrase. He had a feeling he was going to be saying it a lot this evening.

"See? It's only us women. And we're all family." Lucretia's eyes fell on the girl next to Narcissa, who was blushing furiously. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear—excepting you."

The girl nodded, opened her mouth to say something—then closed it again, clearly embarrassed.

"My _husband_ is not at fault for anything," Narcissa addressed Lucretia, tartly. The older woman was fiddling in her clutch and didn't notice the stony look being leveled in her direction. With a flourish of her wrist, she pulled out a small Chinese fan and snapped it open.

"You don't know that, Cissy, that's the point—" Lucretia fanned herself and continued, airily. "In my experience, men _never_ want to admit that _anything_ is their fault. Especially as regards… _that_ area."

Narcissa gave her mother an annoyed look, as if she expected Druella to defend her husband's manhood against these allegations—but it was her aunt who stepped in.

"I hardly think _you're_ in a position to be lecturing us on this subject, Lucretia," Walburga said, voice heavy with irony. "Considering you never had children of your own."

"I suppose that's fair—though Ignatius and I never tried. But you know I'm right, Walburga." There was a glint of mischief in her eye as she surveyed her sister-in-law. "It took you almost the same amount of time to fall pregnant, didn't it? And that wasn't from a lack of trying, from what _I_ recall." She turned to the two youngest women in the circle and smiled slyly. "My brother Orion takes _all_ his duties—including those of the marital variety— _very_ seriously. My dear sister-in-law here used to complain to me about his…ardor."

Sirius was taking a sip of wine—he thought it suspicious if he didn't—and choked.

"I did no such thing!" Walburga said, crossly, over her sister-in-law's laugh.

"You did!" she teased. "Don't deny it. Who could blame you? Every night for _four years_? That's more than most women could bear." She stopped fanning herself and tilted her head. "You do have to admire my brother's stamina, at least."

Even Aunt Druella laughed. Sirius's insides curled in mortification. Is this what women always talked about when they were alone? Lord, let it never be said that they couldn't be as loutish as men.

"You are telling tales about me, Lucretia Prewett," Mrs. Black turned to Narcissa and her friend and addressed them, severely. Cissy had rolled her eyes—the brunette looked mortified beyond measure. "Do not believe a word she says—she's been like this since we were girls."

"I won't deny that, of course—doesn't mean my tales aren't true," Lucretia said, tapping her on the shoulder with the fan. Sirius's mother swatted it away in annoyance.

"Once the two of you got going, of course, he did well enough by you," Lucretia continued, fanning herself harder. The mood in the circle shifted, minutely. Her sister-in-law's eyes glinted dangerously—her exasperation had turned to something else entirely. "Two in less than two years. And both boys. Whatever happened _later,_ all in all, I'd say that was not a bad bit of—"

"—Yes, _thank you_ , Lucretia," Walburga cut her off, coldly. "That will do."

Lucretia fell silent, and the hand holding the fan abruptly dropped to her side.

Druella and Narcissa exchanged knowing looks, and the former crossed over to her sister-in-law and tucked her hand in the crook of her arm in what was probably meant to be a 'sisterly' fashion.

"You must be missing Regulus something dreadful," she consoled. Mrs. Black jerked Druella's hand out of her arm.

"He's only been gone a week," she snapped, defensively—a tad too defensively, Sirius thought, even for her. "I do wish people would stop making such a _fuss_ over it."

"Who is making a fuss?" Lucretia asked, curious.

"Everyone," Walburga replied, severely. "They're all acting so surprised—and no one seems to think the marriage will come off. It's very vexing."

Both her sisters-in-law clucked their tongues in sympathy, while Narcissa shot her younger girlfriend a significant look and nudged her. The girl bit her lip.

Sirius felt a tiny stab of concern—not for himself, but for his mother. In the flat she played it so cool, it had not even occurred to him that the rest of their family would start nosing in over Regulus's absence this quickly. He cursed himself for not thinking of it—after all, what else did these people have but family gossip? They _lived_ for it.

Druella gave his mother an awkward pat on the arm.

"Well, dear—it's only surprising that you sent him away so suddenly, it's not like you _or_ Orion—"

"Speaking of my brother," Lucretia interrupted, serenely, looking over Druella's shoulder. "He appears to have spotted us."

On reflex, Sirius turned his head in the direction his aunt was looking—indeed, his father was clearly visible through the sea of wizards and witches, scanning the crowd—and immediately upon having found what he was seeking, had started towards them.

As Sirius turned his head back, he felt the unmistakeable sensation of being watched—and realized, with a start, that the brunette whose name he had already forgotten was looking at him.

Their eyes met for a second, and she blushed at being caught staring and looked away again.

"What does that man want _now_?" Sirius heard his mother mutter, half to herself, half to Lucretia. His aunt held up her fan to shield her mouth from the rest of the group and spoke just loudly enough for him to still catch the words.

"I can tell he's in a foul temper," Lucretia murmured, quietly. "Do you want me get rid of him?"

Walburga let out a short sigh of resignation.

"No, it's fine—" Her eyes narrowed in the direction of her advancing husband. "I'll deal with it."

"Are you sure?" His aunt whispered, with more urgency. Sirius frowned and leaned sideways so he could catch everything she said. "I saw Papa drag him off into the corner to give him a _drubbing_ a little while ago, I'm sure that's why he looks so put out. "

"I know how to handle my own husband, Lucretia!" Mrs. Black hissed back, just as the man himself arrived.

As soon as his father entered the circle, Sirius straightened up again and rearranged his—that is to say, Svensson's—expression to look politely puzzled by the goings-on of the English witches and wizards around him. It wasn't necessary, though, as Orion barely registered the Nord—or indeed anyone else in his immediate vicinity—and made a beeline straight for his wife.

"I need to speak to you," Mr. Black said to her, in a low voice. "Alone."

Walburga stared up at him, cooly. Sirius watched the exchange with apprehension. Lucretia had been right—he did look like he was in a bad mood.

"Does it have to be _right_ _now_?" she asked, after a long pause.

Apparently Orion's bad mood was catching. Sirius could feel the hostility practically radiating off of her—he did not envy his father in this moment.

"I would rather it was," Orion said, his eyes narrowing with a hint of warning. "It won't take long, trust me—come."

Mrs. Black made no move to follow her husband. In fact, Sirius would've bet money that after being given that order in front of her sisters-in-law, his mother had no intention of going anywhere with him.

"What is this about?" Sirius's mother asked, haughtily.

"You can _guess_ what it's about," he said, irritation now obvious.

"No, I can't," she shot back, tartly—just as annoyed. "I am not an expert in Divination, as you know, and nor am I a _mind-reader._ "

Sirius gaped. He was not the only one who was staring at the two of them: Druella and her daughter watched the unfolding argument with lurid curiosity. It was no wonder—his parents _never_ argued in public.

At least—they never _used_ to.

Her sarcastic response pushed him, and to his son's surprise, Orion actually grabbed her by the arm.

"I am not doing this right now, Walburga," he hissed, not making much effort to keep his voice down. "Do not make a _scene_ —"

"Orion Black—I am _shocked_ at you!"

The sound of his sister's voice loudly chastising him froze Sirius's father.

"Imagine _my_ brother, bullying his poor wife," Lucretia scolded, forcibly pulling her brother's hand off Walburga's arm. "And at his own father's birthday party!"

"I am not bullying anyone," he said, quietly. His sister continued to speak as if she had not heard him.

"And snubbing the rest of us—you haven't even said hello to me yet this evening! What on _earth_ has gotten into you?"

Mr. Black turned towards his sister very slowly—then turned his eyes to the rest of the people he had up until now been ignoring—Druella, Narcissa, and the two perfect strangers who were all gaping at him.

He let out a long sigh.

"I didn't see you, Lucretia," Orion said, taking a step towards his sister, still glaring at him. She tossed her head, haughtily, then tilted her face up towards him. Her brother bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. "There, is that better?"

Sirius's aunt smiled affectionately at his father and did something that he had only ever seen her dare do—she patted her little brother on the cheek and kissed him back.

"Well, it's a start," Lucretia said, pulling away, her eyes glimmering with mischief. "You know, right before you arrived we were talking about you."

"Oh…?" her brother asked, wryly. "Dare I even _ask_ what was said?"

Sirius's mouth twitched at the guileless expression on his aunt's face.

"I was telling everyone what an attentive husband you were when you were first married—and then you go and start a quarrel right with your wife right in front of us!"

"I'm sorry if I've ruined the picture of domestic felicity you've painted," Mr. Black said, studying his fingernails.

"I don't know if 'felicity' is quite the word _I_ would use to describe your…attentions." Lucretia's innocent smile turned wicked. "Perhaps you're only quarreling because you enjoy _making up_ so."

At the flash of discomfort on his father's face—Orion very clearly understood what Lucretia meant—Sirius actually laughed. Hastily he turned his snigger into a coughing fit, but the sound drew Mr. Black's attention.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure, sir," the older man said, turning his cold eyes on the taller man.

Sirius stopped coughing and straightened up, as if he half expected his father to bark at him for poor posture. Lucretia clasped her hands together in delight.

"You haven't met yet, Orion? This strapping _viking_ of a man is Mr. Svensson—" Orion gave his sister a disapproving look. "Oh, don't worry—he can't understand a quarter of what we're saying." Lucretia raised her voice and pointed to Mr. Black in an exaggerated fashion. "Herr Svensson—allow me to present my brother, Orion Black."

Orion held his hand out. Sirius looked down at it, then back up into gray eyes staring very intently at him—and took the proffered hand.

" _Hyggelig å møte deg_ , Herr Black—" Sirius shook it, slowly. "Is—good meet you."

His grip was forceful: Sirius tried not to make his discomfort too obvious. Just as he had been during the toast, he was left with the sensation that Orion could somehow see through his disguise—could tell that it was his worthless older son he was being introduced to and not Nicolaus Svensson, richest wizard in northern Europe. Sirius comforted himself by remembering that his father viewed every new person he was introduced to—and foreigners in particular—with a deep and abiding suspicion.

Surely that explained the probing look the older man was giving him.

"The pleasure is all mine, Svensson—I'm sure," Mr. Black replied, smoothly, letting go of his hand.

"Das—Herr Black," Sirius said, dully. He flexed his fingers experimentally. They still worked.

He looked back up into his father's face—the shrewdness lingered, and he was greatly relieved when Orion stopped scrutinizing him and turned towards the rest of the hitherto neglected females in the circle.

"My sister is perfectly correct, of course—I _have_ forgotten my manners," he admitted, addressing his sister-in-law and her daughter first. "How are you, Druella?"

Druella was so relieved that he had recomposed himself that she only laughed.

"We're very well, Orion—very well indeed," she said, patting her daughter's arm. "As you know. Wasn't it sweet of Cissy's father-in-law to host us?"

Aunt Druella was too busy simpering at her daughter to notice how Orion's mouth thinned.

"Yes, he's been very—sweet." Mr. Black nodded at his niece. "And you, Narcissa? You're looking well."

"Thank you, Uncle Orion."

"I was just speaking to your husband, Cissy. He passed on your message to me—or would 'suggestion' be a better word for it?" Narcissa smiled, and her uncle looked at the girl at her other side. "And you must be the famous Ms. Battancourt. I hear much of you."

He gave her a faintly ironic smile and bowed to her, the girl smiled, shyly, before curtsying to him.

"How is your great-aunt?" he asked, with polite interest. "She must be happy for your company, all the way out there in Cornwall."

"She's very well, sir—thank you for asking," Ms. Battancourt said, demurely. She had a light accent that Sirius couldn't quite place.

"And how long will you be staying with her?"

"Through the new year, I think, at least—" She paused and looked sideways at her companion. "Narcissa has very kindly invited me to—"

"—Orion!" Lucretia cut the girl off mid-sentence and turned to her brother. "I just remembered I needed to speak to you about something right away."

Her voice was falsely bright and cheery, connoting urgency. Orion turned in the direction she was looking.

"Oh—you do, do you?" Her brother cocked an eyebrow up and gave her a grim smile. "Can't it wait?"

"No, it _cannot_."

Unlike her brother, Lucretia Prewett was not about to take 'no' for answer. Peering over her shoulder, her nephew saw the source of her sudden desire to flee—his irascible grandfather Arcturus was peering about the room, and upon spotting his headstrong daughter, looked ready to pounce.

She snapped her fan shut and stuck it back into her diamond clutch bag.

"You don't mind, do you, Walburga? If I steal him away for a bit."

"By all means," Mrs. Black said, dryly. Sirius's mother looked quite ready to see the back of both of them.

"You can at least wait to say 'hello' to our father," Orion informed his sister, with a huff.

"It's never just 'hello'," she muttered back, darkly, rummaging about in her bag. "And I wasn't joking, I _do_ need to talk to you."

"You haven't seen your sister in a long time, _dear_ ," Walburga pointed out, cutting off his incoming protest before it could leave his lips. "And she wants to catch up with you. Whatever it is you need to say to _me_ ," she stressed the word delicately. "It can keep."

Every single person there could tell that Mr. Black's wife was trying to get rid of him. He rolled his eyes in resignation and let his sister loop her hand into the crook of his arm and tug him away from her.

"Fine—if it's _that_ important, Lucretia," Orion sighed and addressed his wife. "But I still need to talk to _you_ —later."

"I look forward to it," she replied, impassively.

With one last frown in his wife's direction, Orion Black let himself be dragged away by his sister—who threw Walburga a wink and waved cheerily at the lot of them. The two of them managed to disappear into the crowd just before Arcturus started towards them. Sirius's paternal grandfather had an ivory topped cane he needed to walk, and it made his approach very slow.

That was good, as it gave his grandson the chance to make an exit from this unfortunate circle of female relations before he arrived.

"Der— _drikke_?" Sirius turned to Aunt Druella. "Fru Black—drink?"

He mimed a glass of water. Narcissa and her mother exchanged a look, but the Battancourt girl muffled a giggle. Walburga only gave him a contemptuous look.

"No, I'm fine—but don't feel obliged to stay, Mr. Svensson—" Druella said, kindly. "By all means, help yourself. We know you've had a long journey."

They wanted to get rid of him as much as he wanted to leave: great. Sirius nodded to each of the remaining women in the circle. His mother barely looked at him—she had gone back to pensively staring into the middle-distance—and when he hurried toward the food and drink table in the back of the hall, he felt his confidence grow. He had managed to make it out of his first skirmish of the night relatively unscathed.

The Battancourt girl was the only one of the ladies left whose gaze lingered on his back as he scuttled away.

* * *

Maybe it was the presence of so much magic in the immediate vicinity—or maybe it was just the fact that this was a TV about the same age as _him_ —but no matter how much he fiddled with the antenna James could not get the picture to come up clear. Every time he banged on the top of the set, the black and white image of the middle-aged Muggle and his much younger wife (mistress? sister? With this program you never could tell) became sharp for a split second before going fuzzy again.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, and his glasses slipped down his nose. He pushed them back up, cursing under his breath.

Just as well, as it was a stupid program anyway. The only reason James had started this attempt to fix the television—a Muggle object he had the most rudimentary understanding of—was because it took his mind off of thinking about Sirius, out on yet another dangerous Order mission without his best mate, partner-in-crime and always trusty second at his side.

All respect to Frank Longbottom, Auror Extraordinaire—but keeping Sirius Black from getting himself killed took a special kind of expertise, and James didn't trust anyone else to do it.

Lily always teased him that, out of all his friends, Sirius was the one he was most protective of—the one who seemed, on the surface, at least, to be the most capable of looking after himself. Lily was perfectly correct to point out that if his best friend knew how many hours James had poured out his worries over him to his wife, Sirius would unleash a barking laugh at his expense and tell him to get his priorities in order.

And he would be right. With Lily and the baby on the way, he had quite enough things to worry about.

The trouble was that James had gotten rather _used_ to being the primary worrier in Sirius's life, and even though he knew his wife and child had to take precedence over everything else, Sirius included—he couldn't seem to help himself.

Padfoot _needed_ looking after, whether he realized it or not.

James fiddled with the dials on the back of the set, but all they did was make the gray blobs greenish blobs, and then when he turned the the dial back the other way, reddish blobs. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, absently. This would probably be a better distraction if he actually understood how the telly worked.

It wasn't just the mission tonight that had him worried.

Two days after their fight, Sirius had turned up at supper-time at Godric's Hollow, looking put-out but not thunderously angry, as he had been when he had stormed out of the cottage. Over a dinner of beef stew and potatoes, and coaxed by Lily, the two of them had patched things up. Sirius was extremely touched at being asked to be godfather to their baby, and had apologized, rather stiffly, for the way that he had reacted to James and Lily's attempts to follow Dumbledore's lead.

He remained uneasy, though—and things were odd and strained between them. Since that day, James had barely seen him—and every time he _did,_ Sirius was withdrawn, in a black temper or utterly distracted, as he'd been in the Leaky Cauldron this afternoon. He was completely preoccupied with dealing with his brother—Regulus always had to have someone with him, and Sirius, Lily and Remus were taking turns—and parents, who apparently insisted on having formal dinners _every night_ in the flat. When James had dared to ask why Sirius's presence was _also_ required for these meals, considering he was the 'bad' son who had been disowned, his friend had only laughed coldly and made a cryptic remark about 'revenge being a dish served best in five courses.'

He did not understand that comment—and he wasn't meant to. If Sirius was not going to volunteer its meaning, James knew better than to push.

His best friend's relationship with his mother, father and younger brother was the one thing James had never truly understood about Sirius. It was not from a lack of trying on his part. In school Padfoot had turned changing the subject from his family into a near art-form, and without exception he denied caring a whit about anything his parents did or said. If they came up at all, it was to be laughed at for their backwards, snobbish views—or to be complained about when the subject of summer or Christmas holiday plans were suggested, and Sirius inevitably was not allowed to go with the other three.

Padfoot didn't like to let it show, but James had always suspected there was more to the story.

The night he'd shown up on the Potters' doorstep, soaked to the skin and dragging his school trunk behind him, was the closest James had come to the heart of it. The tear tracts had still been visible on Sirius's face—he looked as though he'd cried the entire broom flight. He had been so tired and was so upset that for the first time in James's memory, Sirius had let his guard down. He had rambled for what felt like hours, a tirade of pent-up grievances—about how they didn't understand him, that he was never good enough, and who would want to be, they were such pureblood maniacs, and he was well-shot of his mother, who had never loved him anyway…

He'd just sat there like an idiot, not knowing what to say—not understanding at all.

 _That_ part of it hadn't changed, James thought, sliding his hand underneath the set—he let out a violent exclamation and pulled it out again. His fingers were now covered in a sticky black ooze; he stared down at it, irritable, and sighed again. There had not been a single day of his life when _he_ had been in doubt of his parents' love—how he could hope to get what Padfoot was going through?

Sirius must've seen that, because he wasn't confiding in James _now_ anymore than he had _then_. He had been hoping for a Christmas Eve reprieve, maybe the two of them could go for a run as Prongs and Padfoot in the snow, like old times—perhaps he could get Sirius to open up about what was really going on with Mum and Dad Black after a couple drinks.

And of course—selfishly—he wanted Sirius there for himself. It was the first Christmas since his _own_ parents had died.

The sound of movement in the room jolted him out his thoughts, and James poked his head out from around the faux-stained wood set to find Regulus, standing at the door staring at him.

"Oh—erm, hullo." James pushed up off the floor, leaving a greasy residue on the orange shag rug—the last hold-out of Mrs. Black's taste purge of the apartment. "I was wondering if you were going to come out."

Regulus made no comment as he watched James readjust his horn-rimmed glasses; they were lopsided and had slipped down his nose again. The shorter boy was looking at him with the same studied, haughty air he always had—or at least it was the only look James had ever known him to have.

The most he had ever had to do with Regulus in school had been on the Quidditch pitch. That had not endeared them to one another—the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin had been particularly fierce in the years they had both played for the House teams—but James had a feeling Sirius's brother wouldn't have liked him even if he _hadn't_ trounced his team four years in a row.

"I heard noise, so I came to see what it was," Regulus informed him, primly. His eyes flitted to the television screen and they became wide as saucers.

"What—is that?" he asked, fascinated.

"That?" James turned towards the TV and gave it a good kick. "That's _Coronation Street._ "

The kick did what him fiddling with the antenna and back of the telly had not—it fixed the screen's picture and sound. Now the people on the television could be heard audibly talking about their torrid affair, and there was no longer a squiggly gray line cutting through the center of the image.

"Hey—that did the trick!" He looked over at Regulus and was surprised to see that the younger boy was utterly enthralled.

"It's like a moving photograph—that _talks_!"

James laughed.

"Didn't Sirius explain what the telly was?" he asked, watching Regulus walk towards the box with the 'moving photographs' with extreme caution, as if the muggles inside it might spring out and attack him at any moment.

"He did, but I didn't believe him—" Regulus kneeled in front of the television and stared into it from a foot away. "I thought he was having a go at me—"

He considered telling Sirius's younger brother that he shouldn't sit so close, but his enthusiasm was infectious: it reminded James of his own reaction when Lily had first shown him the television at her parents' house when they were dating.

"You know, there are some wizards and witches who're talking about _our kind_ doing broadcasts on it."

" _Really_?"

He looked up with undisguised excitement, and at the sight of James's knowing grin, flushed. Remembering what his mother would say if she caught him examining such an unsuitable Muggle technology, Regulus forcibly dragged his eyes away from the television and marched over to the sofa. He picked up the heavy book sitting on the coffee table and buried his face in its dusty pages.

James sat down on the armchair, still grinning, and settled in to watch the last twenty minutes of the program.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asked, casually, folding his hands behind his head. "If I watch?"

"I don't care," said the muffled voice from behind the book.

Lily had told him that her mother used to love this show when she was a girl growing up—James could not follow the plot very well (everyone seemed to be interconnected, but there were too many people, and did everyone live on the same damn street?) but he found Regulus continually peaking up from over the edge of his book to watch it entertaining in and of itself.

"If this is distracting you," James remarked, after he caught Regulus watching for the sixth time. "I can turn it off."

"I am _not_ distracted by that—Muggle contraption!" Regulus insisted, peevishly, sticking his nose back in the book. James shrugged, a smile still tugging at his lips and got out of the chair. He felt the eyes on the back of his neck as he walked over to the set and switched it off.

He turned back around to find the younger Black brother glaring at him.

"You don't have to stand on ceremony with me, you know," James pointed out, wryly. " _I'm_ not going to tell your mum."

Regulus silently huffed and didn't reply. Not for the first time, James wondered how the Black parents had produced such wildly different sons.

"I don't care what you say to my mother or anyone else," Regulus told him, with a priggishly, and then he turned back to his book. James rolled his eyes.

The younger Black brother's stomach rumbled loudly.

"You hungry?"

Sirius had told him before he left for the party that Regulus had not yet eaten dinner. A half-eaten steak and kidney pie sat on the coffee table between them; Lily had made it for the occasion, thinking a nice meal might soften the younger boy up.

Sirius's brother looked at it and his stomach gurgled again.

"No, I'm not."

Regulus buried his head in the book again—the forehead visible over the top of it slightly pink. Lord, James thought, pulling out a Quidditch magazine from his bag, if this was what 'night's in' were like in the Black family, no wonder Sirius had run away.

* * *

"That was a close escape," Lucretia said, flinging her diamond clutch, and then herself down on the plush cushions of the love-seat. "Quick—close the door behind you before anyway sees where we went."

"As you wish," her brother said, dryly, and he snapped the door to the Malfoy Family library shut behind him.

Orion looked around the room with mild curiosity—he had been to this house dozens of times, on social calls, usually with his father, but he'd never set foot in the library. It was immense, far larger than any of the libraries in the various Black family homes. While _their_ family had sought to spread their wealth and interests over a wider playing field—in addition to Number Twelve and the manor in Suffolk, smaller Black houses and cottages were dotted across the country—the Malfoys had consolidated their land into the single, vast Wiltshire estate.

Malfoy Manor was built on a grand scale, meant to impress and intimidate in equal measures, and the library reflected that intention to a 't'.

Thousands of books, a collection nine centuries in the making, lined the walls in shelves that stretched up to the frescoed ceiling. A fire crackled in the giant stone fireplace, the centerpiece of the handsome room. The mantle was adorned with gilt, Rococo ornaments, no doubt pilfered from some hapless Muggle aristocrats during the Revolution, and massive French doors lead out to the garden that bordered the hundreds of acres of countryside that belonged to the family.

Looking around the room, Orion couldn't help but think all this ostentation was distasteful and that the room had failed in its purpose—it didn't seem a very comfortable place to read, after all, and what else was a library for, in the end?

"Tell me," Orion said, taking a few steps towards his sister, who had already managed to find a half-full bottle of brandy in the side table, and was pouring herself a generous drink. "Do you intend to spend the _entirety_ of our father's birthday party fleeing from his presence?"

Ignoring his question, she took a sip of the brandy and pulled a face.

"Dreadful," Lucretia remarked, holding out the glass to him. "Try this—it's awful."

He looked down at the glass of amber liquid and back up at his sister, who was staring at him in honest expectation.

"Why would I drink this?" Orion asked her, flatly. "You've just told me it's bad."

"To amuse me—you're so droll," she said, smoothly. "You have a talent for making elegant, cutting remarks. I would enjoy hearing my brother insult this brandy."

He laughed, in spite of himself.

"I suppose that's meant to be a compliment," He frowned. "You can't hide in here forever, you know."

"If _this_ is the only liquor to be found in this room, I certainly can't." She lounged back on the love-seat and wrinkled her nose at the glass. "I thought the Malfoys were even richer than we are, what do they mean by it, to keep such swill around?"

"Lucretia." Her brother's expression turned very stern. "I am not going to make excuses for you all night—"

"I didn't ask you to, did I? I just need something a bit stronger than that punch to—steady my nerves." She looked up from her drink and frowned. "Oh, don't give me that look! I saw him corner you, you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about."

He didn't bother contradicting her—with his sister, there was no point.

"Papa has been _unbearable_ all evening," she continued, taking another sip of brandy. "Old Malfoy has been rubbing your niece's baby in his face and he's on a tear—you're only envious because I'm better at dodging him than you are."

"He spotted you sneaking out of the hall during his toast," Orion pointed out, dryly.

"He _did_?" Her brother nodded; Lucretia cursed under her breath. "He's going to get me for that—and I only did it because I needed a breath of fresh air."

"A breath of fresh air?" he repeated, with a snort. "More like you needed _a smoke_."

"What's wrong with that? You look like you could use a smoke yourself." Lucretia opened up her clutch and pulled out an ivory cigarette case. "Do you want one?"

"Of course I don't, Lucy—honestly." He reached forward and snatched the case from her hand. "You can't do that in here."

Mrs. Prewett crossed her arms and scowled.

"You have become such a scold, 'Rion." She reached forward and took her cigarettes back with a haughty sniff; his sister elegantly pulled one out, along with her long cigarette holder. "No wonder Burgie asked me to get rid of you."

In spite of his irritation, Orion smiled. Lucretia was the only person who still called him by the diminutive nickname of his youth—it was one of many things that were the prerogative of an older sister. He didn't mind, but Walburga hated being called 'Burgie'. The only people who still dared were her mother and Lucretia.

She and Walburga had been best friends when they were girls—and then his wife had made the capital mistake of marrying _him,_ which quite 'spoiled' their intimacy, in Lucretia's opinion. One couldn't be best friends with one's in-laws.

"My wife didn't ask you to get rid of me, Lucy—I could tell she was nettled at you for interfering."

"Not so nettled that she didn't take advantage, though," Lucretia pointed out, innocently.

Orion let out an affronted huff and settled himself in the armchair opposite her.

"You were sticking your nose in for your own amusement, as usual—all that rubbish about me bullying her— _please_." He put his legs up on the settee between them and glowered at his sister, who only laughed—a airy, tinkling sound like a bell being rung. "That woman has never been bullied a day in her life. If anything, the two of you used to bully _me_."

His sister smiled mischievously and summoned another dusty glass from the sideboard.

"Can you blame us? You've always been so easy to tease." She poured him the remainder of the brandy and shoved it into his hand. "All of Papa's bluster—and underneath it poor Mama's soft heart. How could we resist?"

He wasn't listening to her, was instead nursing the glass and staring pensively into the fire.

"What did he say to you, Orion?"

He looked up from the fireplace. His sister had put down her glass of subpar liquor, and she was scrutinizing him carefully.

"Who?"

"Don't play stupid—I'd know that hangdog look a mile off. Papa!" She furrowed her brow. "He was awful to you and you're stewing over it. What did he badger you about, when he dragged you off into the corner?"

He considered whether he should answer her honestly or not.

"He's been at me over Regulus."

"Well, _I_ could've told you that was a mistake. Packing him off to France without at least _pretending_ to ask permission?" She leaned over and rapped his foot with her clutch. "That was an amateur mistake—not like you at all. What were you _thinking_?"

"I couldn't tell you, Lucy." He stared back into the fire.

"That's obvious." She lit the end of the long cigarette holder with the tip of her wand. Her brother wasn't paying attention, not even to scold her—and this uncharacteristic behavior was of concern to Mrs. Prewett. "You have to take care with that boy. Regulus is under a lot of scrutiny—far more than he would've been, if—circumstances weren't…what they are."

She trailed off delicately. There was no need to say more, they both knew what he was referring to.

"I'm well aware."

She watched him for a long moment, her teasing look turned to genuine concern—far more obvious now that he wasn't looking at her.

"You mustn't let him get to you, 'Rion."

"Father?" Orion let out a humorless laugh. "I don't."

"Oh, _please_. Of course you do. You always have. You want to make him happy—as if anything could. Men are so silly. I've never met a man who didn't want to please his father."

A shadow passed over Orion's face.

"I have," he said, coldly.

His elder sister stared at him. The firelight playing across his face emphasized the circles under his eyes—her brother looked very drawn.

"You know the _real_ reason I skipped out during the toast?" She asked, tactfully changing the subject. "I thought Papa might go up there and give a _speech_ , and I wasn't about to give him the chance to point me out in the crowd and remark on how many years I've been married and how many grandchildren I've given him."

"You should count yourself _lucky_ you haven't given him _any_ grandchildren."

She took a thoughtful drag from her cigarette.

"Is _that_ what this is about?"

"What?"

"The prodigal son." Her brother looked up from the fire, alarmed. "Don't shout— _you_ brought him up. And Burgie nearly bit my head off in the ballroom when I mentioned him—"

"Why would you think it a good idea to mention _Sirius_ in front of my wife?" he hissed, sharply. "In mixed company? Have you taken _complete_ leave of your senses?"

"Are we allowed to say his name again? I thought it was _forbidden_." Lucretia took another drag from her cigarette, nonplussed. "Relax. It was a passing remark. It's very hard to pretend as if he never existed, you know—"

"You have no sense of propriety at all, Lucretia!" he snapped. "Where is your husband tonight, anyway? Why can't he see fit to control his wife?"

"Like you control yours, you mean?" Lucretia shot back, cooly. "The key to my marital felicity is that I only make Ignatius see Papa twice a year. He'll be at the Christmas party, that should be good enough for you."

He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and went back to brooding. Anyone who knew him well would recognize that he was thunderously angry, though the only clear sign of it was in his flashing eyes. Orion was a master of masking his emotions.

"How did _he_ come up, anyway?" he demanded, after a minute or so.

"We were talking about childbirth, and I might have alluded to how long you and Walburga tried before you had your boys." Lucretia's feline smile returned. "And how _hard_ you tried."

"Of course! _That_ what you were laughing about when I walked up."

"Burgie told me quite a bit in those early days of your marriage, 'Rion." Orion's eyes narrowed into slits.

"I'm glad the two of you had a good laugh at my expense," he said, silkily.

"Don't get your back up! I'm only teasing. I thought your eagerness was very endearing."

"I suppose she complained about it," he groused. "Well, she never complained to _me_ , I can tell you that. From what _I_ recall—" He shot Lucretia a sideways look; she was trying very hard not to laugh. "—She seemed to be enjoying herself well enough at the time."

His older sister watched him slouch in the high, wing-backed chair—a very undignified pose, for him.

"I'm sure she did," Lucretia placated, sweetly.

"You do not need to patronize me, Lucretia!" Orion snapped, icily. "I am not a child anymore, I'll remind you. I'm a grown man, and I'll thank you to treat me like one."

"Be that as it may—you'll always be my little brother, Orion." She stopped waving the fan. "And I'm concerned about you."

"You needn't be—I wish you'd butt out."

"Well, I am not going to." He looked up, surprised by her vehemence. The look she fixed him with was quite severe. "What were you and Walburga fighting about, really?"

He fidgeted in the chair, dickering with the answer—but the look she fixed him with was steady. She was not going to be put off.

"She doesn't want to host the Christmas Eve party at Grimmauld Place," her brother admitted, honestly.

Lucretia's mouth opened in shock.

"Does Papa know about this?" she asked, dropping ash on the cushions.

"Oh, yes," Orion leaned back in the chair. "That's the other thing he's on me about. He was less than thrilled by the suggestion."

"I don't wonder!" her sister exclaimed. "Not have the family party at Grimmauld Place? I've never heard such an absurd notion."

Orion smiled—thin and humorless. Never heard such an absurd notion…he could fill his sister's head with far absurder ones, if he cared to.

He looked around at her, and was unsurprised to find her fixing him with a decidedly shrewd look.

"What is _really_ going on between the two of you?" He blinked, warily. "And don't pretend there's nothing, because I'm your sister and I can tell there's something amiss. You're not doing a very good job of hiding it."

"You wouldn't believe me if I _did_ tell you, Lucy."

"Why don't you try me?" Lucretia said, her chin jutting out in a fit of stubbornness.

He looked down at her—his sister stared up at him with that obstinate expression that had always forcibly reminded him of their father—and he sighed.

Why not? She was not going to leave else wise.

"On the earlier subject of my disgraceful eldest son," he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice neutral and bland. He had to go about this very carefully. "Do you knowing anything about what he's doing now?"

The last thing she had expected was for him to change the subject back to her nephew—the one thing in their family that was completely taboo to discuss, outside of whispered conversation.

"Why would I?"

"Because you hear things we don't—from your husband's people. Tell me—you have an inkling of what he's up to, don't you?"

She fanned herself slowly.

"I have heard—rumors," she admitted, timidly. "I'm told he runs with a very fast set."

"Who told you that?"

"My Prewett nephews—I think Gideon and Fabian are part of the same set, actually." She tilted her head coquettishly. "They told me he's living in London."

His expression darkened.

"Well—I can tell you, your Prewett nephews are right about that much."

"Really? How do you know?"

"How do you _think_?"

Lucretia lowered her cigarette, slowly.

"No—you haven't _seen_ him!" she exclaimed, extinguishing it on the cushion. "Not— _recently_?"

Her brother got up from the armchair and walked to the fireplace. He leaned on the mantle; he could practically feel his sister's eyes through the back of his skull, staring through him. Orion spun on his heel to face her.

"Is _yesterday_ recent enough for you?"

His sister looked at him for a full ten seconds—her expression a smooth blank, then, to his surprise, Lucretia burst into a wide grin.

"Why, Orion Black—you sly devil—" Her voice was full of faux accusation. "You've been sneaking out of Grimmauld Place to see _your son_ , haven't you?"

She clasped her hands together in delight at this news, far better than she could have hoped for.

"Keep your voice down!" Orion hissed. His sister only laughed harder.

"You have—I'm right! Oh, this is delicious—" She sat up straighter. "You must tell me where you've been meeting him—clandestinely."

He glanced at the door, then back down at her face. Lucretia was hanging off the sofa, dark brows drawn up in an expression of keen interest. His dratted sister was not about to let it go _now._

"In…Lisson Grove," he admitted, voice brimming with disapproval. "In a Muggle housing block."

"In a Muggle—is that where he _lives_?" He rubbed his forehead and nodded, in a manner that suggested it took every ounce of his strength to admit this shameful fact. "Good _God_. How on _earth_ did he end up _there_?"

Orion crossed his hands behind his back and scowled.

"Salazar only knows. You should see the flat. Execrable in every conceivable way—" He rolled his eyes. "Naturally, _he_ loves it."

"I'll bet he does." Her eyes were alight with interest. "And how _is_ my infamous runaway nephew? How has he been? Is he as impish as ever?"

"Is that _really_ the appropriate question to be asking in such a moment?" her brother said, with withering sarcasm. "This is a grave matter—I wonder at your tone."

"Well—you know I've always been fond of Sirius," Lucretia said, fanning herself elegantly, a circumspect expression on her face. "He's just so charming—how could one not be?"

"It's easy enough to be _charmed_ when you only have to see him four times a year," Orion groused. "Imagine being that _hellion's_ mother or father."

Lucretia's eyes widened.

"Goodness— _Walburga_ doesn't know about this, does she?"

"Of _course_ she does. She's been seeing the blasted wretch, too!" he admitted, tiredly, leaning on the fireplace. His sister let out a gasp, shocked and delighted in equal measure. "I hope this sufficiently explain why the two of us seem to have taken _complete_ leave of our senses. That boy has a talent for driving people mad—he's only gotten _better_ at it since he ran off."

"But how did this—"

Orion held up a hand to silence her.

"That is as much as you're getting from me. Content yourself with the knowledge that your nose for gossip is as good as ever—and for once in your life let it _lie_ , Lucy," he said, in a firm voice. "If I ever do tell you the rest, it's not going to be here, believe me. I can't believe I've said as much as I have. It must be this repugnant shoe polish you've made me drink—it's gone to my head."

His sister struggled to control the natural desire to leap on this salacious news, and after thirty seconds of visible struggle she collapsed back down on the cushions and digested it. Her face slipping into an impassive blank. She was very thoughtful and quiet—too quiet for Orion's liking.

The crackling of the fire—normally a sound that brought him comfort—seemed unnaturally loud this evening. He stared into it for what felt like hours. The only noise he heard from behind him was the occasional sip of Lucretia drinking from her glass of brandy. By now she would have finished her glass and moved onto the one she poured for him.

"Do you know what his trouble always was?"

The break in silence startled Orion. He turned to look at her, tried to come up with a simple reply—there should've been an obvious one. He knew the answer to that question all too well.

Didn't he?

"The trouble with _him_ ," she continued, in a matter-of-fact tone, when no reply was forthcoming. "Is that he was born a boy."

Orion met his sister's eyes, and he found her expression to be quite serious, not flippant at all.

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean it. You can get away with so much more in this family as a woman than a man. It's the one advantage we have." Her brother blinked at her in utter astonishment. "If Sirius had been born a woman, he wouldn't have run away. He'd have just done as I did."

"Which was…?"

"Marry out of the family, of course."

He repressed a harsh laugh at his sister's shockingly naive views of Sirius, the boy that had sworn off all conventionality as a way of thumbing his nose at his mother.

"If you think _that_ , you don't understand my son at all."

She sighed.

"Maybe you're right. He does lack my finesse, I suppose." She waved her hand again—it was beside the point. "The point is that if he were a girl, he could've pulled it off."

"Pulled _what_ off?"

"Causing trouble while remaining in good standing with the family, of course!" she said, her impatience with her obtuse brother obvious.

"Oh, _really,_ Lucy—you've made far less of a success of that than you think you have." She huffed loudly. "And what does being a _woman_ have to do with it?"

"Nobody takes what we ladies do all that seriously—so long as we're discreet, we can think what we want. Men, on the other hand—" She shrugged. "Black men are expected to tow the party line, always. That's something _you've_ always understood—and so does Regulus. Of course—" She looked askance at him. "—He does always follow your lead, poor boy."

He could only just still hear the string quartet playing through the heavy walnut door of the library.

"What am I to take _that_ to mean?"

"Well, Regulus is just like you, isn't he?"

"Is he?" Orion asked, puzzled. "The thought's never occurred to me."

"He is, believe me! A creature of duty, not too imaginative—frightfully conventional." Her eyes glittered, and she waved the cigarette with as much careless dismissal as she was treating her younger nephew to. "Eager to please at the cost of everything else. It makes life hard for the two of you—Blacks, after all, are _not_ eager to _be_ pleased."

He realized, with a jolt, that she'd managed to do what he thought she wasn't capable of anymore—in the midst of all her flippancy and shallow amusement, his sister had landed a real blow.

"What a flattering picture of us you paint," he replied, curtly. She ignored his obvious offense and continued, unperturbed, to analyze the situation, gesticulating with feeling.

"—Sirius, on the other hand, well—he's far too much of a free-thinker." Orion's brow furrowed, she didn't seem to notice. "Your firstborn son has _quite_ the mind of his own, from what I remember. You'll never catch _him_ towing any lines—"

"—And the only person he cares about pleasing is _himself,_ " he finished for her, bitterness unmistakable.

Admitting such a thing out loud was so out of character for her brother that it gave her momentary pause. Lucretia was forever pushing people too far—but she had spent so much of their youth bossing Orion around, she could push him farther than most.

"I don't think he was ever _meant_ to be the heir, you know," she observed, sagely. "There must've been a mistake."

"A mistake on whose part?" Orion asked, drolly. "Mine or God's?"

"Both, I'd expect."

"There were no mistakes!" her brother said, harsh. "It is what he was born to do and be. It isn't a matter of _choice—_ these things never are."

"Oh, Orion," Lucretia shook her head, her voice full of pity. "You're the only one who still thinks that way."

He scowled at her. His sister had always been an irritatingly presumptuous woman. She thought she was the final word on every subject, and too often the times she was most confident of her rightness were when Lucretia was most off the mark. Her dismissal of Regulus was living proof of that—if she knew what his younger son was capable of, when really pushed, she would not be comparing Regulus to _him_ , the man who couldn't even escape from a conversation with Arcturus Black unscathed.

And she didn't know a _damn thing_ about duty.

"I'm surprised at you," he said, back to the fire, surveying her cooly. "I would've thought for sure you'd try to ply me for more information on how all this came to pass."

"I already know you aren't going to tell me," She paused and considered him, her face carefully masked. "I daresay you regret saying as much as you have."

"You're right," he said, and he turned stern again. "It goes without saying you won't speak of this to anyone."

Lucretia looked up at him, all innocence, and his expression grew even more severe.

"Not even Walburga?"

" _Especially_ not Walburga," he said, darkly. "I mean it, Lucy—keep your nose out of it and your mouth shut."

"I will not," she insisted, indignant. "There's a great deal more to this than you're telling me."

"It's for your own good that you don't know anything else. And anyway—" He gripped the mantle and sighed, heavily. "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

Lucretia rose from the love-seat and joined him by the fireplace.

"…Are you in trouble?"

His sister touched his arm, gently, in a rare gesture of comfort—he did not react, but he didn't brush her off, either.

"Yes," he admitted, straightening up again.

"How bad?"

He said nothing for a long while.

"…Did your Prewett nephews tell you what he's been up to since he left school, by any chance?"

"No," Lucretia answered him, quietly. "But—I have my suspicions."

Why did Orion have a feeling that the Order of the Phoenix was the 'fast set' to which his sister was referring?

"Well, then—you already know." He sighed again, weary to his bones. How he longed for his study, now. "Suffice it to say, our father is going to be livid."

"Don't trouble yourself over that, 'Rion—he's never happy," Lucretia said, giving him a sympathetic pat on the arm. "It's ever since Mama died. Without her to bully, he's turned to you and I as his consolation prize."

He crossed his arms and gave her a wry look.

"And you always manage to slink off, leaving me alone with him."

"Didn't I tell you it was easier to be born a girl?" She grinned at him, but he didn't return her smile. "I'll keep your secret—but that doesn't mean you can stop me from nosing around. It's too delicious _not_ to."

Orion sighed. He wondered if telling her it was a matter of life and death would stop her—no, that would probably stir his sister's curiosity even more. She was, in her way, like Sirius—she had a talent for finding trouble, and an indulgent husband who let her.

Of course, her brother and father were no better at tempering Lucretia's impulses.

Apparently Orion couldn't control _anyone_ in his family.

"You look tired," Lucretia said, with gentle and fond exasperation, and she drew closer to get a better look at the bags around his eyes.

"I _am_ tired," her brother said, annoyed. "Can you blame me?"

"You take too much on your shoulders." She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "…You aren't ill, are you?"

Orion was struck by how much in this light she reminded him of their late mother. Lucretia wasn't as pretty as Mama had been—her face had too many sharp corners, which had always made her rather more handsome than beautiful, but she had never minded overmuch. His sister had other qualities to recommend her—charm first among them, and despite knowing her his entire life, Orion was as susceptible to it as anyone. Like the insolent nephew of whom she was so fond, it was impossible to stay annoyed with Lucretia for very long.

However ill-advised it had been, Orion found he couldn't quite regret telling her part of the truth.

"Of course not."

He didn't regret lying to her, either.

* * *

The blood was still pounding in his ears when he made it to the long walnut table in the back of the hall.

His hands shook, and when he looked down at them, Sirius felt a jolt of alarm in the pit of his stomach, then rising panic. He must've been going mad, because for a moment he didn't recognize what he was looking at.

Then he remembered.

Everything he was staring at—unnaturally thick fingers covered in fine blond hairs, the perfectly rounded, manicured nails—that was all _meant_ to be there. These were Nicolaus Svensson's hands. He was inhabiting another man's skin, a man who he'd never met—he had nearly forgotten.

Without warning, Sirius began to laugh. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned one hand against the table, while the other muffled his mouth. When he turned sideways, he caught sight of an elderly witch, who shot him a disapproving look—that only made him laugh harder.

He turned back around to the hall. A wave of nearly supernatural calm washed over him, followed closely by a spike of adrenaline, born from his burgeoning confidence, rather than his fear. He had just done that and actually _gotten away with it_. He had stood in a circle of his closest female relations, and not one of them—not Cissy, Dru, Lucretia or even his own _mother_ —had given him so much as a second glance.

What had seemed like such a close shave in the moment had not been at all. It was pure nerves on his part; there was no reason for them to suspect he wasn't who he said he was—he was a stranger very few people at this party had any interest in, as anonymous and invisible as a foreign _ghost_ would've been. He was free to go anywhere in this room, listen into any conversation, if he wanted to.

This was the perfect mask.

He could do this. Dumbledore had trusted him to, and he could—this was _far_ more up his alley than the last mission he'd been given.

Frank was right…he needed to relax.

His spirits refreshed, and with a renewed sense of purpose, Sirius scanned the room, looking for the svelte, dark-haired man his partner was inhabiting, but he didn't see him—or Lucius, or his father, the elder Malfoy. Longbottom must've gotten them alone, was working out the details of the game tonight.

He let out a sigh of relief. Frank was too smart to get caught—and even if he was, Sirius could comfort himself with the fact that the Malfoys weren't likely to let an Auror of his stature disappear under their roof, even if he was on an off-the books espionage mission.

Of course, the Malfoys were the type of wizards who could make murder look like an accident…

He shivered. Frank was clever, and he'd been preparing for this for days—he was not going to be so stupid as to let himself be left alone with them, and in a giant, crowded room of party guests they weren't likely to try anything. It would be far worse if _he_ were caught. Being in the Order didn't afford him the same protections that working for the Ministry did.

 _"_ _Take care to drink some potion on the sly every hour, and you'll have nothing to worry about, Black."_

Frank's words from earlier in the evening echoed in his head—shit, that was something else he had to remember. Sirius fumbled in his pocket for the watch that the Potters had given him as a gift on his 17th birthday. When he extracted it from his interior pocket he swore under his breath. Damn—it had stopped again. In his desperation to escape the Death Eaters that night in Hogsmeade he had landed hard on the ground and cracked the front glass. For the past week it hadn't run right, despite his efforts to repair it.

Of all the nights for him not to have a working watch…

Had it been an hour yet? He dropped the watch back in his pocket and looked around the hall—there was no clock in sight, not even an ostentatious, gilded grandfather like he would have expected. Well, it had to be close at this point, and he had more than enough potion for the evening—better not take the risk.

He pulled the silver flask out of his inside pocket and carefully unscrewed the top.

 _"_ _Le punch n'est pas à votre goût, Monsieur Svensson?"_

His start of surprise was so violent that he almost dropped the hip-flask onto the floor. Sirius fumbled with it, it nearly slipped out of his hand—gelatinous potion swished around the tops of the edges of it, dangerously close to spilling—and, flustered, he spun on his heel.

A pair of clear blue eyes stared up at him.

It was the brunette who had been standing next to Narcissa—the one he hadn't recognized. She must have followed Sirius to the table, for she had somehow ended up on his right side, by the punch bowl. Funny how she had slipped past him undetected like that.

This girl had just asked him a question in _French_.

She looked up at him, polite and attentive, and he realized that she was waiting for an answer. He lowered the flask slowly and stared at her, his mind a sudden blank. A string of French governesses had made Sirius passingly decent at the language. _Le punch_ …he looked down at the untouched glass on the table next to his hand, then at the flask he still held in his right hand, and like a bolt, he understood.

She was asking him if he didn't like the punch.

He started to formulate a reply, then remembered that it didn't matter if _he_ could understand, it mattered if Svensson could, and running the dossier over again in his head, he couldn't for the life of him remember if he was supposed to know French or not.

Maybe if he said nothing, she would get bored and wander away again? But no, despite being struck dumb and the blank stare, this French girl showed no sign of leaving. At some point in the last ten minutes she had wandered up, ladled herself out a glass of punch and firmly planted her feet next to his, and she looked up at him with a very clear and straightforward gaze, as if he were the most interesting person in the room.

Disconcerted, Sirius stared back—and without the distraction of his relatives around, actually took the time to examine her.

The large blue eyes were her most striking feature. They were set in a heart-shaped face, above a straight nose and a full mouth, below gently sloped eyebrows which lent her face a perpetually curious expression.

She was not a bad-looking witch—if you went in for the well-bred, straight-laced and _demure_ type. Sirius thought she could've done herself better, frankly. Her light brown hair was done in ringlets and pulled up out of her face—the hairstyle was practically a relic, and it didn't suit her at all—it made her look missish. Sirius gave her outfit a sweeping appraisal—and grinned inwardly at the slight blush the look elicited. That blue gown she was in was also not doing her any favors—all those frills up the neck, she was hiding the best parts, and the lace collar reminded him unpleasantly of a china doll. It made her look even younger than she was, and she couldn't have been older than eighteen.

Still—he had to concede that she was _kind of_ pretty.

And a stranger—even if she was jabbering at him in French, he would've known he'd never seen her before tonight. So she wasn't one of Narcissa's Slytherin friends, as he had first assumed—she had definitely not gone to Hogwarts. He knew every half-decent looking English girl between the age of seventeen and twenty-five, and though she wasn't a drop-dead stunner, he would have remembered that pair of eyes.

She tilted her head, and a curl fell out of her bun. He felt an irresistible urge to tuck it back in, because the way it dangled about her neck was…distracting.

Well—this bloke probably knew a bit of French. It couldn't hurt to answer her question, could it? Sirius cleared his throat and screwed up his face in a look of intense concentration.

" _J'avais besoin d'une…boisson forte_ ," he said, wrenching French lessons from a dozen years ago from the bowels of his memory, and he tacked on an apologetic smile. She looked down at the flask in his hand, then back up at his face.

 _"_ _Puis-je essayer un peu de votre boisson?"_

She mimed picking up the flask and drinking it. Sirius's grip on it tightened, and he pretended not to understand that she was asking to take a sip.

" _Je suis désolé, mon français n'est pas bon, Mademoiselle…_?"

"— _Battancourt,_ " she supplied for him, helpfully, apparently not offended he couldn't remember her name. Sirius liked the way she trilled the 'r'.

" _Ah—danke, Mademoiselle…Battancourt._ "

Sirius took his time with her name, and he enjoyed trilling the 'r' as she had. Ms. Battancourt clapped her hands together, apparently impressed. Something stirred in Sirius—something that felt suspiciously like his ego.

"You have a good ear, sir," Ms. Battancourt said, switching abruptly to English.

" _Danke_ ," he nodded, momentarily forgetting that he should have to think far longer to understand her compliment—or how odd it was that she should go back to speaking in a language that was neither of their native tongues.

"Your French accent is very good," she continued, lifting up her glass of punch and delicately sipping from it. "I must tell you, it is _much_ better than your Norwegian."

For a moment Sirius thought he hadn't understood her correctly—except she wasn't speaking French anymore. Ms. Battancourt's expression remained mild, but her clear gaze took on a formidable quality.

"Erm… _excusez moi_ …" Sirius put on a puzzled expression, then for reasons that were inexplicable to even him, decided to go back to one of the few stock Norwegian phrases he had memorized for such occasions. " _Jeg forstår ikke, Frøken Battancourt._ "

 _I don't understand, Ms. Battancourt._

"Your Norwegian accent—it is not very convincing." She placidly watched the color drain from his face. "You sound like a Swede."

She finished her drink and set the empty cup down next to his full one, still looking up at him with polite interest, completely immune to the string of expletives running through his head as he stared at her in mute horror.

"Who _are_ you?" he blurted out.

"Have you forgotten so quickly? We _were_ just introduced." The tone was of mild rebuke—but there was a twinkle of amusement in her clear blue eyes. "My name is Colette Battancourt, _monsieur_."

She curtsied politely, but Sirius did not bow back, as he should have. He just kept staring at her—his deep and profound confusion must've been obvious, for the girl—Collete Battancourt, apparently—stifled a laugh.

He couldn't for the life of him understand why _that_ was the question he'd asked. Maybe he had been expecting her name to yield some profound insight into how the hell she had seen through his deception, but no such insight had been forthcoming.

He had no idea how this girl had found him out, or—more pressingly—why she was behaving so strangely now that she had. Considering she had just accused him of being a liar and a fraud, Ms. Battancourt was damn near blasé.

"I might ask you what _your_ name is," Ms. Battancourt continued, frankly. "Your real name, I mean. I think it is not Svensson. You are an…Englishman, _non_?"

"Why do you think _that_?" he asked, very aware of how crummy his Swedish accent was, but not willing quite yet to give up the pretense. The girl shook her head and tutted.

"You can stop pretending. I know you understood every word that was said back there, sir." He blanched, but as Ms. Battancourt was refilling her cup with punch, and either didn't notice or wasn't troubled by it. "And you speak French with an English accent. You are no more Norwegian than I am."

 _Well, shit._

He turned his back on the ballroom, towards the table where the half-empty punchbowl sat. At his right side, the girl did the same—leaving them free to speak, at least for a little while.

"This is an interesting theory you've concocted, _Mademoiselle_ Battancourt," Sirius said, very quietly—hardly moving his lips. "Tell me, have you shared it with anyone else?"

"I have not," the girl murmured back.

Sirius's eyes widened. If that was true—no, it _must_ be true. If she had told anyone in this room, he'd already have been caught.

"And why is that?" he asked, keeping his voice light.

"Because I am curious as to why you have done this," she whispered. "I think if I give you away _now_ I will never know."

What was this girl playing at? Did she think this was a game? Sirius chanced a look at her, and found that her eyes were staring into the punchbowl, twinkling with a sort of girlish mischief as she waited for an answer. That damned curl was still tickling her neck.

She _did_ think it was some sort of game.

"Meet me by northeastern pillar—past the string quartet," he whispered. " _Don't_ make it look like you're following me."

Still clutching the silver flask in his right hand, Sirius abruptly turned around and began walking across the hall.

His first, immediate gut instinct was to lose her and find Frank, fast—but just as quickly he discarded the notion. If he ditched her now, the French bird could fly to any number of authority figures—one of the Malfoys, or, God forbid, his grandfather—and confess her suspicions about him. He had to keep her interested, or the game was up.

To his surprise, when he made his way to the pillar, Ms Battancourt was already there, eyes dancing with expectation. The girl was still holding her glass of punch and sipping from it. As he made his approach, she waved cheerily at him—Sirius scowled.

"Eager, aren't you?" he said, and he pulled her gently by the shoulder farther into the shadow of the pillar, positioning them so that he had his back against the crowd and no one could see his face.

She looked around their surroundings and then back at him.

"This does not seem quite proper, sir."

He leaned closer—she would have been quite a bit shorter than Sirius, in Svensson's body he towered over her.

"If you were concerned with _propriety_ , Ms. Battancourt, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all," he informed her, bluntly. From this close, he noticed there was a smattering of freckles on her nose.

"You're quite right," she admitted, softly.

Sirius pulled back up again and surreptitiously looked around their immediate vicinity. No one had taken much notice of them. They had reached the point in the evening where all the guests had had a few glasses of wine and were feeling rather relaxed and inattentive—especially to things like young witches being pulled into the corner by strange foreigners.

"You're an odd sort of girl, Ms. Battancourt."

"In what respect?"

"In your approach to dealing with men in disguise that you meet at parties," he said, bluntly. "I'm surprised you didn't say anything. In my experience, most well-bred young witches wouldn't have the nerve to act as you have. It's positively _daring_."

This delicate flattery was made much easier by the fact that he _was_ impressed—albeit grudgingly. The girl did not take it for granted that he was praising her.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation. You're taking rather a risk, speaking to me this way." He smirked. "What if I were a dangerous criminal?"

"What reason would a dangerous criminal have to infiltrate an old man's birthday party?" she scoffed.

"You'd be surprised." He lowered his head towards her again, and said, more seriously, "When did you figure it out?"

"When Mrs. Prewett teased her brother—you laughed," she said. He mumbled several curses under his breath. "You tried to cover it with a cough. I think I am the only one who noticed."

"Was there anything else?"

"I saw you were eavesdropping on her private conversation with Mrs. Black. You also—" The girl giggled, nervously. "Erm… _blushed_ at things that Mrs. Prewett said."

At the recollection of his aunt's remarks, Ms. Battancourt looked out of sorts, more like the shy wallflower she had first appeared to Sirius.

So she did have delicate sensibilities about _some_ things…interesting.

"You were blushing too, if I recall," he observed, dryly—and she turned red again and twisted the stray curl around her finger. Sirius smirked—he had discomposed her. "Tell me, is that how _all_ women speak when they think there are no men about who can understand?"

She shook her head, and the ringlets bounced about her head. That hairstyle really did make her look like a porcelain doll—she really ought to let her hair down, so to speak.

" _Non_. Mrs. Prewett is a bit…franker than most."

"Frank—that's one way of putting it. I'd say _indecent_ , myself." She muffled another laugh behind her hand—he noticed she was wearing satin gloves, another old-fashioned sartorial choice—and he smiled. "I wouldn't have expected that—not even from her."

"Is Mrs. Prewett well known for her boldness, sir?"

He studied her cooly for a moment—the question seemed innocent enough, and he had to give her something.

"She has…a reputation for stirring things up, let's say." Sirius gave an ironic smile. "Compared to that uptight brother of hers, she's practically a rebel."

"That was not the first time you'd met Mr. Black, was it?"

There was a coyness to the question, and the girl's innocent smile no longer entirely met her eyes. Sirius crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I think you're trying to draw me out, _mademoiselle_."

"Well…I did not follow you here to learn nothing, _monsieur_."

Ms. Battancourt raised her punch glass again, and at the action, almost on reflex, Sirius lifted the silver flask still clutched in his right hand and unceremoniously clinked it to her cup.

" _À votre santé_ ," he said, lifting it up to toast her, and he took a swig from the flask. Sirius pulled a face—essence of Nord hadn't gotten any better since the last time he downed some of the Polyjuice Potion.

She raised one of her eyebrows—it had the effect of making her look more woman than girl.

"To yours, sir." Ms. Battancourt raised her own glass and sipped from it. "You're still not going to let me try that, are you?"

She watched Sirius carelessly drop the hip-flask into the front pocket of his robes.

"It wouldn't be to your liking—trust me," he said, flashing her a mysterious smile.

Her eyes flicked back to his face.

"I will have to take your word for it."

Ms. Battancourt lowered her empty cup and stared up at Sirius, wearing that curious look on her face again. He considered his next move—gaining her trust was key—and quickly, for he had things to do. She seemed clever enough, but the old-fashioned clothing, the foreign manners, the profoundly reckless choice to speak to him this way—everything spoke to her inexperience.

Frankly, this girl was lucky he _didn't_ mean her any harm.

"If you don't think I'm a criminal," he said, picking up their earlier conversation again, casually. "You must have some other idea of what I'm doing here— _incognito_ , as it were."

"I do not." She fiddled with the bracelet around her wrist, then looked up into his face—and gave him a probing look. "I cannot see a reason why one would do such a thing—to pretend not to speak your own language is…" she trailed off. " _Bizarre_."

Sirius snorted.

"If you knew the people in this room as well as _I_ did, you'd be looking for an excuse not to talk to them, too."

Affronted, she turned her nose up—now looking every _bit_ the stuck-up pureblood witch he would've expected to hang around with Cissy.

"If you do not like the company," she said, cooly. "I wonder why you came at _all_."

Inwardly, Sirius rolled his eyes. What a priss! All these girls were the same. Maybe he'd been wrong to think she wasn't just as priggish as her kind usually were.

Still—he looked down at her and felt some unease. It wouldn't do to annoy her too much as this stage of the venture. Ms. Battancourt didn't seem vengeful—but you never could tell with these straight-laced types. Nice and easy would do the trick. He wasn't going to walk away from this conversation until he was sure he had her on his side.

It was time to employ the famous Sirius Black charm.

"I like the company I'm keeping _now_ ," he said, his tone of voice unmistakably flirtatious. It was the same voice he always put on for Rosmerta, and he usually got at least a smile for it. "It's a sight better than I thought it would be."

Instead of softening her, all he got for his trouble from this girl was a look of suspicion. Sirius frowned, confused as to why this tactic hadn't worked. Didn't she recognize flirting?

"Well, at least you like _someone_ in this room," she replied, voice tart. Sirius's eyebrows flew up—apparently she didn't—or he was repulsive in this body, more like.

"I wouldn't bother acting offended on the Blacks' behalf, miss," he told her flatly, dropping the charming routine. "They've all said far worse about each other—no need to get your back up over it."

"I am not offended," Ms. Battancourt said, flushing pink again—but he noted, with relief, that she had dropped the snooty act as quickly as he'd dropped the flattery. "I just—I still wish to know why you are here, that is all."

Sirius considered her, thoughtfully. This one was tricky. If he wasn't going to flatter his way out of this, then maybe, just maybe—he would have to take drastic measures.

"Can you keep a secret?"

Her blue eyes widened a fraction, and she nodded, very slowly.

"Then I'll tell you—in confidence. The truth is…" He leaned forward—for a second she looked apprehensive, but her curiosity won out over her fear, and Ms. Battancourt moved her head to allow him to whisper in her ear. "…I'm meeting someone, and I don't want to be recognized."

She let out a small gasp, and the girl's cheek brushed up against his. It was very smooth, and the touch startled Sirius—he moved his head back so as not to risk it happening again.

"Recognized by whom?" she murmured back, as quietly.

"By anyone." Ms Battancourt pulled away from him and stared into his eyes, surprised. "In truth, you're just about the only person in this ballroom I _don't_ know, _mademoiselle_."

"Then you are a—family friend?"

There was a part of Sirius—the very stupid, very reckless part that came out in situations of stress, excitement and danger—that would've enjoyed telling her the truth, then and there, just to see what she looked like when she was _really_ shocked.

"If you can be an _unfriendly_ family friend, then yes," he replied cryptically, settling on a half-truth. "That may be the best way to describe my— _association_ with the people here."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

"So you _have_ met Mr. Black before." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair—but Svensson's was too short, and Sirius found the gesture unsatisfying.

"Why _exactly_ are you so sure I know Orion Black, _Mademoiselle_ Battancourt?"

"As soon as he walked over to us, your shoulders tensed up," she informed him, smartly. "And you grimaced at him when he shook your hand. You did not like him there, at all—I could tell."

Well, wasn't _she_ clever? He frowned, annoyed and impressed in equal measures.

"He has an uncomfortably firm grip." She raised an eyebrow. "Alright. So, the two of us have…a history."

"What kind of history?" she pressed.

"The kind that doesn't get you an invitation to his father's birthday bash," he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. "He's not the sort of man who forgets when he's been…crossed. None of the Blacks are."

"How well do you know them?"

" _Too_ well," he laughed, bleakly. "Most of them wouldn't be too pleased if they knew I was here, _him_ most of all, so I was forced to take…quite drastic measures to come tonight."

This explanation, in a strictly technical sense completely true, did not do much to convince the young lady.

" _That_ is why you did this?" she asked, politely skeptical. "You were that desperate to meet this…friend of yours?"

"He's really more an _acquaintance_ than a friend," Sirius said, shrugging nonchalantly. "And it couldn't wait. He's quite busy—and I must confess, I thought this way of going about seeing him would make things more…interesting."

It took the girl a moment to process this, and upon taking in his full meaning, her eyes flashed with disbelief.

"So this is all a game to you?" she asked, indignance obvious. "Amusing sport?"

Sirius threw her a dashing smile—or at least he hoped it came off that way, but judging from her frown, on Svensson's face it was coming off more like a leer.

"A bit higher stakes than whist or piquet—but yes, of a sort. I assure you, I mean no harm," Sirius told her—and that Ms. Battancourt seemed to believe, probably because it wasn't a lie. "So now you know. You'll keep my secret, won't you?"

"I don't see why I should," she told him, archly. "It is most improper behavior, sneaking into other peoples' houses, even if you _aren't_ a criminal. You really ought to be thrown out of this party on your ear!"

Sirius grinned—he'd gotten her. She was definitely not going to tell anyone.

"You wouldn't have me chucked out!" he told her, with a hint of smugness. "You're enjoying this conversation too much. I bet it's the only interesting one you've had all night."

"It is _not_!" she exclaimed, indignantly, and she turned her nose up in the air. "Mrs. Malfoy and I were getting along quite _famously_ before you turned up."

Sirius leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms.

"Oh, I can only guess at the _profundities_ Narcissa Malfoy graced you with," he snorted, derisively. "Fashion tips and an endless list of her husband's virtues?"

Ms. Battancourt glared at him. Sirius should have taken it as a sign to apologize, except he was enjoying himself too much, so he settled for a cheeky grin instead.

"If Narcissa is one of the people here who does not like you, I am beginning to see why," she told him, crossly. "Whoever you are, sir, you have no manners _or_ dignity!"

"Very true. I've never had much use for either," he agreed, laughing at this description of himself—she turned red again, this time with displeasure. He held up a mollifying hand and bowed his head. "I apologize for my words. I would never have impugned the honor of Mrs. Malfoy if I knew you were such bosom friends."

She puffed out her cheeks, still annoyed—but not very, Sirius could see, because the way her eyes twinkled told him ballgowns and Lucius was _exactly_ what Narcissa had been blathering on about.

"I do not know her—so well," Ms. Battancourt confessed, sheepishly. "But she has been very kind to me this evening."

"I bet she has," Sirius said, heavily sarcastic. Colette Battancourt was exactly the sort of polite, easy-going girl in whom Narcissa would find a rapt audience. "Is _she_ the one who invited you to this jamboree?"

She shook her head—the act made the ringlets bounce around her ears.

" _Non_ —it was my great-aunt Eugenie who brought me. Over there, see?"

She pointed to two women across the room, and Sirius turned his head to get better look. The ladies were speaking in the corner just opposite, a part of the ballroom currently inhabited solely by spinsters and maiden aunts. The older of the two, an ancient and venerable witch with greying ash-blond hair, was stooped over a tray of sweetmeats held by a stringy house-elf, struggling to keep it upright on his head. She wore a lace ballgown that made Sirius's mother's dress look positively modern, and was deep in conversation with a mousy, middle-aged lady whose only distinguishing feature was the necklace around her throat, bedecked with bottle-cap sized white stones which was giving off an almost incandescent glow.

"Who is that with her?" Sirius muttered, more to himself than the girl—though she chose to answer him all same.

"I thought you knew _everyone_ ," Ms. Battancourt said, wryly. Sirius refrained from comment, though he would have dearly liked to point out he couldn't be expected to regurgitate biographical details of _every_ person in the room on command, as most of them were too boring to remember. "I met her earlier. I think her name is Ms. Burke."

"Burke…"

Faint interest stirred in his mind—there was something important about that woman—and then Colette surprised him by immediately supplying the answer.

"Those opals she is wearing are quite something, don't you think?" Ms. Battancourt remarked, off-handedly. "Myself—I don't think she can quite carry them off."

 _Opals…!_

He started to laugh—that woman was Belvina Burke's daughter—she had to be. And that meant the outrageous rope around her neck was Elladora's famous necklace! Sirius squinted and leaned forward to get a better look—Ms. Burke had shifted her body towards the center of the room to watch the string quartet, which gave him a clear view of the infamous disputed heirloom.

He could see at once why Druella wanted the jewels. Even from far away, the magical properties were practically radiating off of the necklace. The stones were enormous—it looked as though it weighed about three pounds, a tribute to decadent excess. It probably cured warts or dragonpox, kept your hair from growing gray…maybe it helped with fertility, that would explain why his aunt thought Cissy needed it so badly…

"What is so amusing?" Ms. Battancourt said, and he turned back around, still chuckling.

"Private joke," he said, trying to recover his composure. "So, Eugenie Fawley is your great-aunt? That explains how you speak English—with only the barest hint of a French accent, I might add. Puts my French to shame."

It was coming back to him now, what his father had said in that circle of relatives—she was visiting from Normandy.

"My grandmother taught me," Ms. Battancourt conceded, grudgingly. "Eugenie is her sister. I am staying with her in…Cornwall."

"She looks like a cauldron of laughs," Sirius observed, jokingly—but when he turned around to look at the girl, she didn't join in. He frowned. "How long will you be gracing our fair shores, Ms. Battancourt?"

"I do not know…" she said, softly, gazing across the room, eyes clouded. "It all…depends."

"On what?"

"On how quickly I…do what I came to this country to do," she said, turning back around and busying herself with the empty punch cup.

"You mean you didn't just come to visit?"

" _Non_ …I came to find a husband."

For a moment Sirius thought she must've been joking—except there was not even the faintest trace of a smile, and her matter-of-fact tone of voice was cold and bloodless. Sirius stared at her in astonishment.

" _That's_ what you're in England for?" he said, incredulously. "The _marriage market_?"

Colette Battancourt blinked up at him, and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Of course," the girl replied, evenly. "Why _else_ would I be here?"

It was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water on him. Out of nowhere, Sirius felt disappointment and inexplicable anger directed at his near-stranger, though _why_ he should even care was a mystery. It should not have blind-sided him—arranged marriages were still incredibly common among witches and wizards of a certain social milieu, his own family was using the prospect of one as a cover to explain Regulus's disappearance.

Why was he shocked that Colette Battancourt was the same?

Purebloods could be counted on to do this kind of medieval nonsense the world over…for some reason the thought of _her_ stuck in one of those bloodless unions bothered him.

"Men must be thin on the ground in France, if you had to come all the way across the pond to find one." There was a new hardness in Sirius's voice. "Was it your mother's idea?"

The girl blushed, but she did not look down or flinch, and her blue eyes remained resolute and fixed on his. She was not about to be shamed—by him or anyone else.

"I'm afraid she does not think anyone back home is good enough for me." She shrugged. "My mother is a…very proud woman. Battancourts are expected to marry well, and as I am also a Fawley—"

"—Your family are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Of course. It makes perfect sense. With that kind of lineage there are certain…expectations, naturally." Sirius expression turned cold, and he made no effort to hide his sarcasm. "So…you're here to catch a man, then." The young wizard crossed his arms in front of his chest and appraised her with fresh eyes. She had seemed so genuine and artless, now he thought he detected the telltale signs of calculation. "You have someone in particular in mind, or are you just putting out a lure and seeing who bites?"

"Not that it is any of your business, sir," Ms. Battancourt snapped back, cooly. "But I came here tonight hoping to renew an old acquaintance—and perhaps, if it suits…"

She trailed off—he didn't need her to finish the thought to know what would happen next. Her parents would write to his, and then the proper arrangements would be made, a marriage contract would be signed, an exchange of gold would occur.

The memory of Narcissa and Lucius's wedding suddenly rose in his mind. The ceremony had been held in this very room four years earlier—it had been all pomp and circumstance, a chance for the two families to show off to each other and every other pureblood family in the country how much gold they had.

The thought of this girl, with her loose curl and splash of freckles, being lead to the altar by some over-bred toff—it irritated him immensely.

"And who _is_ the lucky man?" Sirius asked, sliding down the pillar he was leaning against, carelessly. "Your prospective future bridegroom, I mean?"

The girl went back to fiddling with her empty glass. Ms. Battancourt clearly regretted having even broached this topic with a stranger in the first place, and was now debating whether it was wise to say anything more. When she looked up from the crystal cup and saw the way he was scrutinizing her intensely, something in her spirit stirred.

"His name is Rabastan Lestrange," Ms. Battancourt admitted, at last. Sirius's face froze. "Do you know him?"

He stared down at her, his mouth hanging open. Colette chewed her lip—the intensity of his gaze was unnerving to her, but she refused to break eye contact. Abruptly, he unfroze with a jerk—it was as if his brain had been playing catch up, and now that he understood her it was working double-speed. A frantic energy seized the stranger; he seemed to be thinking fast and hard.

"As it happens, Ms. Battancourt, I _do_." Sirius pushed up from the pillar, his expression inscrutable, a new resolution in his voice. "Have _you_ met Rabastan? I suppose you must know him a little, at least, if you intend on _renewing_ acquaintances."

"I've met him a few times. I've been to England before." She looked uncertain. "He was…polite and attentive. I liked him…well enough."

"Well enough to marry him?" Sirius wrinkled his nose in mock-disgust. "He's a bit old for you. And he's not exactly a _looker_."

Ms. Battancourt glared at him.

"I'm not looking for a handsome husband!" she informed him, hotly. Sirius grinned.

"Maybe not…but if one crossed your path," he lowered his face to hers, still wearing a sly smile.  
"I don't think you'd protest much."

"My mother advises against marrying for looks," Colette told him, primly. "She says handsome men cannot be trusted, because often they are arrogant and think too well of themselves."

"A very wise woman, your mother," Sirius replied, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "No doubt Rabastan is amply qualified as a son-in-law, if _her_ standards are what you're going on."

Her blue eyes went wide, and Sirius, seemingly realizing he had perhaps gone too far, set his jaw.

"So, about your future intended…" Sirius said, with a casual air—though his back was rigidly upright, and anyone who knew him would have recognized meant he was on the attack. "Have you had any luck?"

"In what?"

"In _renewing acquaintances_. Have you seen him, yet?" he pressed, with a tad more urgency. "In the hall, I mean. Is he here tonight—Rabastan Lestrange, is he _here_?"

Her eyebrows drew apart again, giving him the same naturally curious expression he had noticed before, and she frowned.

"No—I was told he and his brother would be guests this evening—but I haven't seen either of them, and Narcissa was very thorough in reintroducing me to _all_ her family—" Sirius's mouth twitched, but she was shrugging and didn't notice. "If Mr. Lestrange hasn't arrived by now…I doubt he is coming, _non_?"

"Oh…you never know," her companion murmured, throwing a thoughtful look towards the heavy oak doors that lead out of the ballroom. When he looked back at her, "So—Rabastan Lestrange. Well, not who I would have pegged you with, but we've only just met—and what do I know, in the end?"

It was impossible to miss his derision.

"He is from a very good family," Ms. Battancourt sniffed, haughtily.

"And that's what matters most, is it?" Sirius muttered, folding his arms in front of his chest. "Well…anyway…he can't be the _only_ one you're considering."

"I did not come into this corner to discuss my personal business with you!"

"But we've gone this far—might as well have out with all of it. Perhaps I can give you advice, help you size up the lucky gents." She turned up her nose at him and closed her eyes with a sniff, but Sirius was dogged. "Do you have a back-up plan? Someone else you're thinking of?"

"Well…" she hesitated. "There was—another man. But he isn't a possibility anymore—at least, I don't think he is, though Narcissa told me she still believes it won't come off, and that I have a chance."

"Have a chance with whom?" Sirius interrupted, impatiently.

"Regulus Black."

His mouth fell open.

"That is the real reason Aunt Eugenie brought me tonight—she thought we would see him," Ms. Battancourt continued, immune to Sirius's shock. "She has gotten my _mamon's_ hopes up—I don't think she will soon let go of the idea that I might marry into the Black family."

"I'm getting a clearer picture of your mother by the minute," he remarked, sardonically. "As for Regulus Black—didn't his—erm, mother say he's in France right now?" Sirius remembered that it had been spoken about in front of them both. "I thought they said he was already tied up with some girl."

"Yes—but there is a rumor going about the hall that this marriage will not go ahead as planned," she said, conspiratorially. "Narcissa told me she thinks he will be back before I leave, and there will be no fiancée with him."

So Cissy was filling this girl's head with dreams of being married to the Black family heir? Sirius felt pity and a stab of annoyance at all parties concerned. It was bad enough that his _own_ family bought into the absurd idea that they were royalty, but the fact that they had managed to successfully sell the idea to wizards abroad was bloody absurd.

If they ever got out of this mess, he was going to have warn Regulus to watch his back, lest he be accosted by fortune-hunting young maidens at the behest of their mothers.

"And you believe her?" he asked, cooly. "You trust Mrs. Malfoy as an…authority on the matter?"

"Well, she _is_ his cousin. I expect she would know better than you or I." Sirius snorted, but she paid his dismissal no mind. Colette had tilted her head and frowned up at him. "And anyway…I do think there's something odd about this story. They say he is in Provence—but I don't believe it."

"You don't?" he asked, too quickly. "Why not?"

"I may not know England as well as you, sir—but I _do_ know France," she said, in a superior voice. "And there are no Provencal families with daughters that are good enough for the Blacks! And I heard they sent him away very suddenly. It is suspicious." Her eyes darted about the room, and then back up at him. "I think they are lying about why he is absent this evening."

"What… _exactly_ do you think happened?"

Sirius tried not to make his unease too obvious at this unpleasant news—but Ms. Battancourt's flippant shrug did not suggest she had any idea that Regulus Black was really in hiding from Lord Voldemort.

"Perhaps he has taken to drinking…or a spell has gone horribly wrong and disfigured his face. Maybe—" the girl lowered her voice to a scandalized hush. "—He has gotten this Provencal witch pregnant, and they must hurry the marriage along."

At this last suggestion all his apprehension evaporated, and Sirius burst out laughing again.

"What is so funny?" she asked, annoyed, putting her hands on her hips.

"Have you _met_ Regulus Black, Ms. Battancourt?" he chortled. "If you had you'd know why I'm laughing at the thought of _him_ with a _love child_."

This comment elicited a reluctant smile out of Ms. Battancourt.

"I met him at a garden party last summer. He's a sweet boy. It is true that he does not _quite_ seem the type…" She frowned. "But you never know. There _was_ that business with his brother."

Sirius grew very still.

"'That business…with his brother'?" he repeated, slowly. She'd heard of him? "What do you know about the brother?"

"Only that there was a scandal years ago," she told him, biting her lip again. "My great-aunt Eugenie doesn't have much to do but gossip, she mentioned it to my mother at the time. She said that the elder son was very wild, that he ran away when he was sixteen—and he never came back."

"I can't believe that story made it all the way to France," he said, inwardly marveling at his own notoriety.

"I've been told this scandal was a cause of great shame for the Blacks," Colette said, looking across the ballroom in the direction of the lady in question. "Well, you must have noticed the way Mrs. Black snapped at Mrs. Prewett when he was mentioned."

Sirius felt an uncomfortable twinge in the pit of his stomach.

"I didn't, actually," he lied.

"She was upset by it." Ms. Battancourt gave a sad shrug. "Who can blame her? I cannot imagine what it is like to have such a callous son. It must be very painful for her to hear him spoken of."

Hot indignation shot through him at that, and he frowned and set his teeth.

"That's a rather presumptuous thing to say," Sirius said, bite in his voice. "You don't know how she really feels—and you don't know why the brother ran away. He might've—had a very good reason for leaving."

She shrugged.

"Perhaps," she said, voice airy. "For me—it does not seem likely."

"Why not?" he demanded, getting more annoyed by the minute.

"Well…what good reason _could_ one give for doing such a thing?" she retorted, severely. "From what _I_ understand, he had responsibilities to his family as their heir that he did not want—and so he left. It seems to me, as you say, that he took the easy way out."

Sirius clenched his fists under the ruffs of his dress robes. Was this the rubbish Narcissa was feeding her—or was it more bollocks rumor mongering from the rest of this family? Is that how his parents were saving face—by spreading it here and there that he was a lazy son who didn't take his duties seriously?

Maybe that was what they _really_ thought of him. He wouldn't put it past his parents—three years gone, and they still didn't _really_ seem to understand why he'd left.

"'The easy way out'," he repeated, softly. "You think it's _easy_ , leaving everything behind and striking out on your own?" He considered her, expression thoughtful. "Could _you_ do it, Ms. Battancourt?"

Her cheeks flushed pink

"What kind of—of course not—" she sputtered, defensively. "I would never _want_ to do such a thing!"

"That's very good—because I don't think you'd have the courage to," he shot back.

At this insult, her flushed face turned bright scarlet.

"Courage? You think this takes _courage_?" she asked, incredulously. " _I_ think it is cowardly to run away from one's obligations to one's family—"

"—And if one had material objections to the _ideals_ of one's family?" he challenged, archly. "Is it better to just go along with it? Some might say that it's cowardly to _stay_ , and take the path of least resistance. Has it even _occurred_ to you that—"

He cut himself off; Sirius had remembered who he was supposed to be and what he should to be doing, and felt yet another bolt of self-recrimination.

The girl stared up at him, face still pink, but no longer angry—her blue eyes widened in understanding.

"You _know_ him, don't you?"

A quiet, calm—and keenly perceptive question. Sirius found himself unduly impressed again. She did catch on, quick.

Or _he_ was really obvious.

"You've got me, miss." He held up his hands in surrender. "I do, and one doesn't like to hear slander against one's friends—it gets one hot and bothered. You've got it all wrong about him." He smiled, ruefully. "I apologize for my vehemence. It's not your fault. No doubt you were…misinformed."

She blinked up at him, in her quiet, thoughtful way.

"So you know him—well?"

He could see she was intrigued, in spite of all instincts of decorum and breeding—she was _curious_ about him. He felt a stirring of ego at the interest. It had never occurred to Sirius that running away from a large fortune and well-born family would make him notorious in that social world.

He liked it. It was sort of like being an outlaw.

"Oh, yeah. Practically better than he knows himself." The ghost of a laugh flitted across his face, and he continued, boldly, "I have to tell you—he would be very amused at your assumptions about the _scandalous_ behavior you think his younger brother might be imitating. There was no baby, or woman of low birth—and he certainly wasn't fleeing from any _responsibility_. Those were the last things on his mind when he ran off."

"Then why did he leave his family—truly?"

"Nothing all that exciting, I'm afraid," he said, staring across the room, his smile grim. "Just a run-of-the-mill blood-traitor who was fed up. A political idealist. Took a different view of things than his family—the Black sheep of the Blacks." She furrowed her brow. "You look disappointed."

She did, to his surprise—and annoyance—seem a tad let-down by his admittedly sanitized version of the true story. Apparently his prosaic reasons for leaving home were not a particularly stimulating _scandal_ in the impressionable French witch's eyes. Perhaps like the Blacks, blood-traitors with unsuitable ideas were a commonplace occurrence in the Battancourt family. Merlin knew in _his_ family they were a knut a dozen.

Colette Battancourt tilted her head, deep in thought—then lowered her voice and looked furtively around, though no one was paying them any mind in their little corner.

"What is he—" She hesitated, surprised by her own daring. "What is he _really_ like?"

Sirius nearly laughed. Daring to have an interest in him was apparently the most inappropriate question she'd asked yet, in her eyes.

"Doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. Real dangerous bloke. " Her eyes widened, and he was seized with the urge to tease her again. "Daring. And I _have_ heard him described on more than one occasion as…sexy."

Up until then she had been interested in Sirius's somewhat shameless up-selling of his own charms, but at the use of that particular slang the girl scoffed.

"My mother says that is a vulgar word," she informed him, primly.

"So does mine," he grinned back. "Personally I find it an—effective descriptor, for a certain type of bloke—and a certain type of bird." Sirius's eyes twinkled with mischief. "What's the matter, Ms. Battancourt—never met someone you'd call sexy?"

A creeping blush colored the girl's cheeks, and she tugged at her satin gloves.

"Certainly not," she replied, discomposed. "I would never—speak like—use such crass language!"

"Your loss." His smile widened. "Crass language can be very fun. But I guess your mother wouldn't approve, and if I've learned anything about you, it's that you take great stock in her opinions."

She glared at him, hotly.

"I think you are having me on about all of this," she remarked, skeptically. "I think you know nothing of the Black sheep brother—you are not his friend, and you are making it all up to…to _shock_ and provoke me."

"If you _want_ to believe that, it's your prerogative, of course." His eyes gleamed. "I mean—shocking and provoking you _is_ amusing. But it's not exactly a _challenge_. Why would I have to make things up to do it?"

" _Vous êtes incroyable_!" She looked as though she was about to stomp off—then he gave her a slow smile, and to his surprise and delight—her own mouth twitched up. "You are—are—a rapscallion of the first order. I find you quite _impossible_."

"You wouldn't be the first, by any means. But we've gotten quite off the original point, haven't we?" Sirius's smile became rather fixed and grim. "I was going to give you advice about your potential husbands, and we got side-tracked with all this talk of…old _scandals._ "

The abrupt subject change startled her, and her hands dropped to her sides.

"I suppose," she said, stiffly. "You expect me to believe you know Regulus Black and Rabastan Lestrange, as well."

"As it happens, I do. The former better than the latter." He tilted his head, considering her seriously. "No one could accuse you of having a type, Ms. Battancourt. It's hard to imagine two wizards less alike than _that_ pair."

Sirius pictured Rabastan Lestrange in his mind's eye—the last time he had seen him up close, which had been, predictably enough, at a party at Grimmauld Place. The younger Lestrange brother was tall and thin, with close-set eyes and the sort of rangy look of everyone in his family—not as thicket as his brother Rodolphus, but powerfully built enough. Sirius supposed he must have manners, if he had convinced this girl of it, but _he_ had not ever seen a sign of them.

Next he thought of his slight, haughty brother, who had blushed and stammered and hid behind their mother's legs at the first girl in a party dress he'd ever been introduced to, who played the piano impeccably but got awful stage fright when asked to perform for anyone outside his immediate family.

The only thing Colette Battancourt's two prospective husbands had in common, Sirius thought, grimly, was the wizard they had both, until very recently, called their master.

"I wonder at your parents' wisdom in sending you to England, given the current—climate," he remarked, voice laden with sarcasm. "Don't they know there's a war on in this country?"

"Of course they know about it," she replied, calmly—Sirius thought he caught the barest flicker of anxiety in her eyes, but she hid it well. "They think I will be perfectly safe with my great-aunt. It does not seem likely to affect me, anyway—at least, that is what we have been told."

Sirius watched her absently fiddle with her necklace, and he felt an irrational anger at himself for having ever thought she was pretty _or_ clever. This witch was clearly as shallow as a sink basin, and he had already wasted far too much time humoring her when he should have been focusing on the mission.

"It would appear Mr. and Mrs. Battancourt are almost as naive as their daughter," he said, cooly.

She dropped the necklace and gaped at him, astounded.

"You think I am _naive_?"

"Astonishingly so. If you were any greener, you'd be a cabbage." Her face darkened—from anger, not embarrassment. "You're way out of your depth, _mademoiselle_. You've no idea what the people in this room are really like—and for your own sake, I hope you never do."

Confusion and fear were now competing with her anger.

"What are you talking about?" Ms. Battancourt asked him, astonished. "What do you mean?"

"There are some very _nasty_ characters here tonight," he murmured back, lowering his head to speak in her ear, softly. "And I would hate to see a girl as innocent as you mixed up with them."

His breath tickled her neck, and she pulled back as if she'd been burned.

"Who are _you_ to say I am naive?" the girl demanded, hotly, staring up into his eyes. "And why should I trust the word of a man who _sneaks_ about in disguise?"

"Because he has nothing to gain from lying to you."

She opened her mouth to argue—it hung open. She could say nothing to that. It was perfectly true.

"And on the subject of your prospective _fiancées_ ," Sirius continued, and he was speaking very quickly now—keenly aware that he had little time. "I feel compelled to advise you not to marry _either_ of them."

"Why not?" she whispered, voice faint. She was far too surprised by the deadly serious expression on the Nord's face to bother protesting. Inappropriate and brazen as it was for him to speak to her like this.

"For starters—Rabastan Lestrange is nothing more or less than a _brutal thug_." Her whole body froze. "And as for Regulus…however impressive the gold and Black family name may be, it is not worth having _that woman_ for a mother-in-law, believe me."

"How _dare_ you—"

"Narcissa's spotted us," he cut her off, looking over her shoulder. Indeed, his cousin had been scanning the hall, clearly looking for her friend. Now was his moment. He looked back down at Colette—chewing her lip, torn between suspicion and insatiable curiosity. "So it seems this audience is at a near end. It's been stimulating for me—I hope you can say the same, Ms. Battancourt."

" _Stimulating_ is not the word I would use," she said, glowering—and Sirius saw that her 'French' was up, but he could tell she was more annoyed at his dodging her questions than his presumption at telling her how to run her life.

No, Colette Battancourt wasn't _shallow_ —she was naive, a schoolgirl who didn't have the faintest clue of what she was dealing with.

It was a pity…and though it wasn't _his_ problem, he did feel the natural urge to put her on her guard. She had no idea she was in a room full of snakes. Probably she would ignore him, but he could sleep easy knowing he at least _tried_.

"I bear you nothing but good will—so I'm going to give you a little more advice." He put both hands on her shoulders, very gently, and looked into her eyes. The girl tensed, but she met his gaze without fear. "If I were _you_ , I would stay away from the Blacks and the Lestranges altogether. You'd be better off a _spinster_ than married into either of those families."

Thunderstruck, the witch jerked out of his grip and took a step back, half-tripping on her gown. Without thinking, he reached out with one hand to steady her, gently.

She didn't pull away, though her shoulder trembled a little.

"Who _are_ you, really?" the girl asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

For all her indignance at his brazenness, the girl still wanted to know his real identity—his attempts to distract her had not been successful at throwing her off the scent. If circumstances had not been what they were, he might have told her. Unfortunately for Ms. Colette Battancourt, Sirius wasn't in a position to take her fully into his confidences.

She was going to have resign herself to enjoying the mystery.

"An unfriendly friend, remember?" He flashed her another grin. Narcissa had been accosted by her mother halfway through the hall, but she was close to getting rid of her and continuing her pursuit. "As it doesn't seem likely we'll see each other again, Ms. Battancourt—a little something to remember me by."

Before he could think better of it, Sirius acted the way he always did when he was enjoying himself—extremely rashly.

He grabbed Colette's hand, raised it to his lips and—in an act that was uncharacteristically courtly and gallant—kissed it.

" _Au revoir_."

He let go, and the man who was definitely not named Nicolaus Svnsson winked, ducked behind the pillar, and in a blink of the eye—was gone.

Colette stared, punch-drunk, at the hand he had dropped so carelessly a moment before. The place where her palm met her wrist—the spot he he had the supreme impudence to touch with his lips—still tingled. Numb, she raised it to her cheeks, where she could feel the heat of her embarrassment radiating.

He…he had…

She peered into the crowd, knowing before she looked she wouldn't find him. That man she had set out to discover the true identity of—who had managed instead to draw her out and baffle her, shock and embarrass her, fill her head with nonsense she was sure _must_ be falsehoods…

 _But what if they weren't?_

Worst of all—she _still_ had no idea who he was.

On that front, at least, Colette was in luck. He had been so busy taking liberties with her right hand, he had not noticed what her _left_ hand had been doing at the same time.

She lifted up the silver flask she had palmed from the front pocket of his dress-robes and examined it, wide-eyed.

She might _yet_ find out who he was.


	4. Chapter 4

_"'_ _Were—were your parents Death Eaters as well?"_

 _'_ _No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge. They weren't alone either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colors, who thought he had the right idea about things…they got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though…'"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

 **CHAPTER 4**

"You're late."

The man being addressed so curtly stepped out of the fireplace of the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. He was thickset, clad in hooded robes, and the heavy, fur-lined cloak he wore made the long shadow he cast on the wall look more like a bear's than a man's.

Rodolphus Lestrange lowered his hood and stared into the cold, gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy—intimate childhood companion, schoolmate and, for four years, his brother-in-law.

"Are we alone?" Rodolphus asked, brushing clumps of snow off his shoulders. His cloak was caked with a layer of ice so thick it had survived traveling by Floo.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming," Lucius snapped back, impatient, ignoring the question. "I've been making excuses for you to Cygnus all night."

Explaining Rodolphus's absence to their father-in-law had evidently been a heavy burden, for Malfoy sounded very put-out. His friend shrugged.

"I came as soon as I was able," Rodolphus said, flatly. Lucius narrowed his eyes. "That should be enough for _you_ , at least, Lucius, even if it doesn't satisfy _him_."

Lucius watched the other man pick up a bottle of port that been left on the mantle and take a straight swig. Though he voiced no objection, he did little to hide his distaste for the behavior. Manners had never been Rodolphus's strong-suit, and thirty years of age, it seemed unlikely he was going to change due to fraternal correction from this quarter.

"Where is Rabastan?"

"Coming," Lestrange said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

"…And your wife?"

He lowered the bottle, slowly. Rodolphus's dark eyes flickered with something unfathomable—it might have been an emotion. It was difficult to say.

"Staying," he answered, after a moment. He slammed the empty bottle back on the mantle with unnecessary force.

Lucius's own eyes glittered.

"For how long?"

His brother-in-law grunted and turned his back to Lucius, warming his hands by the fire.

"When I find out, you'll be the first to know," he said, in a leaden voice. Malfoy stared at his friend's back and considered his next words very carefully. Of course, he always chose his words with care—he was a fastidious man, both by birth and inclination—but Rodolphus had a touchy temper, and he needed a light touch.

"Bellatrix is very fortunate that Regulus is also not here." Lucius looked over the mantlepiece, at his own ghostly reflection in the gilded mirror, then back down at Lestrange. " _His_ absence is drawing all the attention away from hers."

"He's still not back from France yet?" Rodolphus turned around again. He looked surprised at this piece of news—and displeased.

"I gather…not."

The thickset wizard sneered. While Lucius could carry off such an expression—his pointed features contorted thusly only increased the aura of disdainful urbanity that he fostered—on Rodolphus it made him look even less polished, more brutal. He was the sort of man one could picture more easily in a boxing ring than a ballroom.

He had been bred, true—but to _hunt_ , not to be shown.

"It was stupid of him to go in the first place," Rodolphus spat, harshly. "He lets his mother walk all over him. He needs to cut the apron strings—or have them cut."

"Regulus may be young—but he is no fool," Lucius said, coldly. "He knows to come if he's been summoned, whether he's in France or England."

"Bella thinks he's soft."

"Bellatrix thinks _everyone_ is soft," Lucius retorted, quietly.

At this, Rodolphus laughed—a flat, humorless snigger that betrayed how bone-tired he was.

"Compared to her, everyone is."

This was a statement so self-evident no reply was necessary.

"What news?" he asked, instead. "What of tonight?"

"The plan goes ahead."

Lucius let out out a soft hiss of displeasure, rather like a snake. His brother-in-law merely stared at him, dark eyes shining dully in the firelight. It was always difficult to guess what he was thinking—most people didn't think anything was happening behind those dark and shuttered windows. Malfoy knew better. Rodolphus might've had a mind that was slow and deliberate—but he was also methodical, and when Lestrange came to a decision, he was relentless in his pursuit of his ends.

A predator at his core.

"I don't like it."

Rodolphus let out a cold laugh, then threw himself down into one of the nearby high, wing-backed chairs.

"You want to argue the point, be my guest." He jabbed at the fire with his index finger. The nail was jagged and dirty. There was something dark under his fingernails—Malfoy suspected it was not, as first appearances suggested, dirt. "I don't envy you the reception you'll get."

Lucius sat down across from Rodolphus. The traveler pulled off his cloak, revealing more of the same mysterious stains on his robes—even in the low light of the drawing room, it was obvious what the larger man was covered in.

"You're going to want to change, of course," Lucius remarked, idly, giving him a critical look. "Given the…occasion."

"What occasion?"

"Arcturus's birthday," Malfoy said, his silky voice betraying his impatience. Rodolphus blinked up at him—whether he was playing stupid or had actually forgotten the reason his father-in-law was present at the manor, it was difficult to tell. Either way, it wasn't of much concern to him. He shrugged again.

"I'm sure that wily old bastard has seen worse."

"I'll see if I can find you some spare dress-robes," the other man said, with a touch of coolness. Not even Rodolphus, never known to be a great study in character, could miss it. He rubbed some of the dark substance off his hands and looked up at his brother-in-law, watching him with distaste.

"You seem in a _mood_ , Lucius," Rodolphus said, his voice hoarse. "Not happy with the arrangements?"

Malfoy steepled his fingers.

"When I…offered the manor, I didn't think my _wife_ would be here," Lucius pointed out, severely. "I wouldn't like it even if I _didn't_ know for a fact there was an intrusion of filth in my father's house."

Rodolphus blinked slowly, again.

"So the worm's information is good?" His close-set eyes narrowed with interest. "He's here? The Auror?"

Lucius smile was cold and thin-lipped, but his eyes gleamed with ill-disguised triumph.

"Yes."

Lestrange hissed.

"And—he's not alone."

A sharp intact of breath.

"Who?"

His brother-in-law shrugged.

"I don't know who the second one is." He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, thoughtful. "There's only a few it _could_ be. Not many could have made it past the enchantments my father set. He knows well how to guard his house from…undesirables."

"So we have him, then," the said, shifting restively in the chair. The firelight danced in the reflection on his black eyes—so dark they scarce had irises—lending him an air of brutality.

"It would be much easier to dispose of him with _alacrity_ ," Lucius said, a touch of irritation in his voice. "If half the purebloods in England weren't here."

Rodolphus smirked.

"Didn't he tell you?" he asked, lip curling up. "That was by design. It was Bella's idea."

"What was she _thinking_?"

"That a crowd this size will lure him— _them—_ into a false sense of security."

"And she thought her own family best suited to the task," Lucius drawled, raising both eyebrows. "How very like her."

Malfoy clearly found his sister-in-law's unwomanly lack of sentiment off-putting, but her husband was used to it, for he only laughed once more.

"It's an honor to serve the Dark Lord…even unknowingly." Lucius gave a sarcastic 'ha' under his breath—but his brother-in-law was quite serious, and he raised his shoulders—a dismissive gesture. "They won't know. It makes no difference to them. They shouldn't have cause to object."

"You _do_ remember exactly who it is we're talking about," his friend rejoined, dryly.

Lestranges were said to have a natural leer—at this reminder of the prideful tendencies of his wife's family, Rodolphus's became more pronounced.

"Arrogant as sin, the whole lot of them. My father did warn me, when I married her." Rodolphus let out a self-deprecating snort. "'A great pair of _tits_ won't make up for a wife who thinks she's been given them by divine decree', he said to me. Fucking wiser than the day was long, that man, may he rest in hell."

Lucius didn't laugh. His expression as guarded—almost wary.

"Of course—Bella's not over-fond of most of her family. Particularly in the main branch." Rodolphus continued, and he slunk back in the chair, a brooding shadow crossing over his face. "She says Reg gets the softness from his father. Can't say I see it, myself."

This mention of their uncle by marriage reminded Lucius of something, and he scowled.

"My _father_ put Orion onto the task of dealing with our…intruder problem," Malfoy said, ill-tempered. He was starting to regret telling Abraxas in the first place—but the elder Malfoy had a talent for sniffing out falsehood, and he had found half-truths useful in their relationship. "I told him not to worry, that it was probably a false alarm—but I have a feeling it didn't take." He narrowed his eyes. "I don't want him meddling."

"Maybe he'll do our work for us," Rodolphus remarked, slouching down even further. "I'd put money on Orion Black over that Auror, if he had him cornered. I don't care _what_ Bellatrix says—under that _mild-mannered act,_ her uncle's as much of a bastard as the rest of them. And moreover—he's sly."

"Maybe so."

Malfoy was careful to keep his answer polite and neutral. Whatever he felt _personally_ about his wife's uncle, the man was the acting head of her family, and he was not about to give Rodolphus a mutinous comment—not when it might get back to Bella. He'd learned to be more judicious than his friend in voicing 'controversial' opinions about the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. His sister-in-law had a penchant for wielding indiscretions like a sword.

"How did Cygnus take the news, by the way?" Rodolphus asked, abruptly jerking his head in Lucius's direction.

"What news?"

"About _Narcissa_ ," Lestrange said, aggressively. "About your _son._ "

At this mention of Lucius's great triumph, his face became even more mask-like. He summoned a glass from the sideboard and another bottle of amber liquid, poured a generous drink and handed it to his friend.

"He's very pleased," was the reply, couched in carefully neutral tone. "Naturally."

" _Naturally,_ " Rodolphus repeated, with scorn. "I bet he is. A grandson at _last_. I bet he's through the roof."

Rare indeed was the moment when Lucius Malfoy was at a loss. The silence stretched uncomfortably between them for a moment, until Lestrange broke it again.

"Between the two of us and the two of _them_ , I think you came off the better in the bargain, Lucius."

"You don't really mean that."

It was a rare moment of candor between them—something approaching intimacy.

"You're right," Rodolphus admitted, staring moodily back into the fire and sighing. "I don't."

They fell into silence. Lucius was impatient of the other man, of news—but knew better than to pull him out of his thoughts, not when they tended _there_. Rodolphus was stewing over his marriage—a union much celebrated at the time in its infancy, but that had, after eight years, failed in the two primary aims that her parents had had when they arranged it: grandchildren, and the tempering of their eldest daughter's wild spirit.

If anything, marriage had made Bellatrix _wilder_. Her family didn't know the half of it.

"Why is Regulus so eager to wed, anyway?" Lestrange said, darkly, breaking the silence. "He just graduated. You'd think he'd be eager for a few years of freedom before shackling himself."

"I imagine it's more about pleasing his parents than anything else."

"For him, that's _always_ what it's about," Rodolphus sneered. "When he gets back, remind me to set him straight on what women are _really_ like."

"How will that help our cousin?" Lucius asked, sardonically. "I think it unlikely _his_ wife will bear much resemblance to _yours._ "

A ghost of a smile crossed Lestrange's face.

"For his sake, I hope not. Of course…what Bellatrix lacks in wifely gentleness—" Lestrange tipped the glass of port back, a single jerky motion, and swallowed it in one. "She makes up for with _other_ qualities."

Lucius smiled, thinly—but Rodolphus only furrowed his brow.

The two men shared a look of private understanding, before Lucius stared back into the fire. His brother-in-law watched him for a moment, his face knowing.

"Are you still worrying about Cissy?" Rodolphus asked, with a derisive snort. "You're almost as soft a touch as Regulus. You'd best get used to it…until _he_ returns, this is what life is. Send Narcissa to stay with her parents, if it really bothers you to think of her…touched by it."

"Over Christmas?" Lucius asked, sarcastically.

Rabastan stared at him, confused. He didn't seem to understand why the festive season they found themselves in should make a difference.

"Throw some gold at her and pack her off to London, then," he said, unconcerned. "Shopping should keep her occupied—she _is_ a female, after all."

"You have the soul of a romantic, Rodolphus," his brother-in-law told him, sarcastically. Lestrange only laughed. "When is Rabastan due?"

Lestrange looked up at the large grandfather clock on the wall, just as it chimed ten times.

"Soon." He rose from the chair and stretched. The port seemed to have mellowed him—or perhaps it had been the brief unburdening onto his companion of his troubles. "He's meeting us in the library. He'll be interested to know about the _other_ one."

Lucius rose from his chair as well.

"It is…intriguing. The question is—" He stepped past Lestrange to a section of the wall covered by a long tapestry depicting a unicorn locked in a struggle with a dragon. "—Do we dispose of _both_ birds, or do we let one…fly back to the nest?"

He pressed a panel, and a hidden door instantly sprung open behind the painted silk. Malfoy lifted it and gestured that Lestrange should follow him through the passage.

" _He_ will have told Rabastan what he wants us to do in case of a spare," Rodolphus pointed out, slipping past him and into the dark passage. "That is—if he even cares."

"You think that likely?"

"It may be a test in judgment," Rodolphus pointed out. "In that case, I'd say it's at the host's discretion— _you_ decide what we do to the other one, if we catch him. You know _my_ preference."

Lucius chuckled quietly—it echoed down the long, dark corridor.

"Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'Dead men tell no tales', Rodolphus?"

"That's why you get them to tell their tales _first."_

In the darkness, Lucius Malfoy indulged in one of his rare, snake-like smiles.

* * *

Published works about Quidditch and flying, James decided, were all well and good in _theory_ —but in practice, all they served to do was remind you that _you_ were down on the ground reading a book instead of up there _doing_ it.

He glanced up from the page of _Seeker Weekly_ and across the coffee table at Regulus. Sirius's brother had not looked up from his enormous, dusty book in over quarter of an hour. His eyes were running over the words with a kind of rote determination, as if he thought if he broke focus from whatever it was he was doing (James had not yet asked) for even a moment, he'd have to start all over again.

James took the creased forehead as a sign things were not going well As good a time as any to take another crack at a conversation. He cleared his throat.

"So, Regulus—" The younger boy's eyes froze on the page, but he didn't look up. "Been—out flying much lately? Since school ended?"

Regulus looked up at him with a look of utmost scorn, and James inwardly cringed. He sounded like someone's uncle who was trying to be 'fun' and reconnect with a nephew he hadn't seen in a long while.

"Not much," the younger boy said, and though the answer was cool—Regulus did not immediately look back down at his book. "Haven't had time."

"I heard Slytherin won the Cup last spring." Regulus continued to blankly stare, face devoid of emotion. "I wasn't surprised."

Regulus let out a snort of disbelief very akin to his elder brother's.

"You 'weren't surprised'?" he repeated, with faint disbelief, and he snapped the book shut. _"Really_? Gryffindor won the tournament the previous _five years_."

James could not resist grinning.

"Yeah—but _I_ was on the team, then." He flipped the pages of the magazine idly. "Did you ever think about going pro?"

"Of course not!"

"Why 'of course not'?" James asked, closing the magazine. "You were the best player on your side by far. Best Seeker of all the teams the final two years I played. You could've played professionally. Still could."

Regulus opened his mouth to retort with something snide—then closed it again. He fidgeted on the couch—thrown off by the praise, clearly. James Potter would not idly flatter—not where Quidditch was concerned.

"It's not considered a…suitable career in my family," he admitted.

"Oh."

There was an excruciatingly awkward pause. James had a feeling Regulus knew what he was thinking— _it seems a hell of a lot more suitable than what you've been doing_ —and was trying not to let it bother him.

"Well—what about you?" Regulus retorted. "Why didn't _you_ go pro? Everyone used to say you could be a Chaser for England."

Touch of resentment aside, Black the younger didn't deny that he agreed with 'everyone' who said this. James's smile broadened.

"That _was_ my dream for ages. I thought I was going to, after school. I even spoke to recruiters for the Wasps and the Magpies. But you know—" He shrugged. "Priorities change. People change."

His tone was a little too casual—and Regulus went pink, but said no more. James bent down on the ground and picked up a few magazines he'd carelessly dropped to the floor.

"Do you want this?" He held up a new copy of _Which Broomstick?_ in the air for Regulus to see. "I'm finished with it."

Regulus looked down at the shut book in his lap, then up at the glossy broom magazine, with its bright and colorful cover.

"Maybe…in a bit."

"There's a pretty good article about the new Cleansweep model," he said, waving it tantalizingly.

Regulus's expression turned superior at once.

"I only fly Comets," he announced, slightly pompously. James made an equally derisive noise in turn.

"So, you mean you enjoy broomsticks that start to drag after three months and fall out of the air at the slightest gust of wind?"

The boy's shoulders stiffened instantly. If his mulish expression was anything to go by, this was a subject he felt some passion about. James, amused, made an effort to keep his face straight.

"That's a total misrepresentation. They're much faster than Cleansweeps," Regulus argued. "And they have a better turning radius. They're far better brooms for Seekers."

"Well—those are the things they've improved about the new Cleansweep—"

"If they couldn't get it right the first two times, I fail to see why I should trust them with a third."

He sounded so serious about this that James actually burst out laughing.

"Your taste in brooms is worse than your brother's taste in _fashion_ , Black."

Regulus turned scarlet and opened his mouth to sneer something back—until he realized that the smile on James Potter's face was not malicious.

He was joking. He was kidding with Regulus. The younger man returned James's smile, albeit with some reluctance. James beamed at him, encouraging, than slouched down in the armchair again, looking pleased with himself. It was a look he wore often enough—even Sirius's brother could recognize it.

The silence between them was far more comfortable now. It was true what they said—Quidditch was the great equalizer.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said, after a moment. "About…your brother?"

"You can try," Regulus said, warily. "I may not have an answer."

James hesitated—then he glanced down at the magazine cover, the image on the front gave him a boost of confidence.

"Why doesn't Sirius like to fly?"

Regulus's eyebrows flew up. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't _that_.

"Who says he doesn't?" he asked, his face expressionless. "I thought you were always out with him on that flying _thing_ he's got."

"I mean why doesn't he like flying on broomsticks. I know he's not afraid of heights, but he always puts me off when I ask if he wants to go out flying." James paused. "He has the entire time I've known him, since first year. I've wondered if there was something to it…and I figured you might know."

He trailed off. The other boy considered him thoughtfully.

"Oh. That." There was the shadow of a smile on Regulus's face, and he shrugged. "The truth is, he's got a bit of a phobia."

"Really? Why?"

Sirius brother stared down at his book, as if he was considering how much to say. James found himself sitting up straighter. When Regulus looked up again, he gave him an encouraging smile, and the teenager's mouth turned up as well.

"Because the first time he ever took a broom out he fell off it," Regulus answered, simply.

James's jaw dropped.

"I never knew that," he said, intrigued by this previously unknown tidbit. "What happened?"

He leaned forward in his chair, and Regulus, surprised to find a rapt audience, laughed at the memory.

"It was his eighth birthday, and we were at our grandfather's place out in Suffolk. He'd just gotten done telling us—the other kids, I mean—all what a great flyer he was—" He rolled his eyes. "Of course _I_ knew it wasn't true, because our father never let Sirius _have_ a broom before then—then he jumps on his new birthday gift, and what's the first thing he does? Shoots straight up in the air, tries to do a flip and rolls off his Comet 130 and onto the coach house roof." Regulus raised his hands to dramatically illustrate the rise and fall—Potter let out a whoop of shocked laugher. "He broke his arm and knocked half the shingles off into the bargain."

"So he's always been a mad prat," James clapped his hands and rubbed them gleefully. "I suspected as much. How come he's never told me this?"

Regulus indulged in a rare grin. James was startled by it—the smile's resemblance to his brother's was striking.

"He's embarrassed about it, of course," Regulus said, delighted. "Once all the adults realized he hadn't broken his neck, our grandmother _screamed_ at him in front of all the guests and he started to _cry_."

" _No_!"

"Yes. He got sent to his room with no supper. He was the only person not as his own birthday dinner that year. And he didn't touch that broom again for ages—and he never really took to flying when he did—I mean, he was perfectly fine, but he never _liked_ it much. It's because of that day, I'm sure."

James was still grinning—looking forward for the opportune moment to spring this story onto Peter and Remus, preferably in earshot of Padfoot—but something about the last comment struck him as odd.

"You think he was skittish for life?" James asked, disbelief evident. "Over _that_?"

Regulus shrugged again.

"Sirius doesn't like things that aren't easy for him. He never has."

It was a simple profundity—but it struck James as being so painfully astute that for a moment he didn't know what to say. Regulus's brown eyes burned quietly in his face.

"I suppose he thought he wasn't good at flying because he wasn't ace at it to begin with," Regulus continued, the lightness gone from his expression and voice. He sounded older and far wiser than his years, now. "After all, he was naturally good at almost everything else. I'll bet he was afraid of making a fool of himself in front of the family again. He _used_ to care about that sort of thing."

He let out a long sigh, unaware of the effect of his words on his brother's friend.

James was blind-sided by the truth of it—something painfully obvious when said, but that had never once occurred to him—at least not in those terms. For Sirius _did_ have a disdain for things he wasn't the best at. How many times had he heard Padfoot proclaim potions as a frankly useless subject, and only because Snivellus and Lily, even James himself, had all been better at it than him?

It bothered James that he had never noticed that before now. It went part and parcel with what had been bothering him the past week—that there was some part of Sirius's life that was closed off to him, that he couldn't help with…

That he wasn't capable of understanding, no matter how hard he tried.

Regulus opened his book again and buried his face in it once more. For James the conversation was just getting interesting, and he rose from his chair and crossed over to the younger boy, the copy of _Which Broomstick?_ in hand.

"What is that you're reading, anyway?" he asked, not really interested in the answer. He was eager to press his advantage with Sirius's brother while he had it. Maybe the younger Black brother could help him break through the wall the elder had erected around the question of his family.

"It's…a research project. Family inheritance dispute," Regulus said, vaguely. James bent over to to read the cover. "It's for my father."

"Merlin, whatever it is, it looks dull. Does your dad make you do stuff like this often?" James asked, throwing himself down on the end of the couch. This familiarity made the other boy fidget, but James didn't seem to notice. "Sirius told me he's a bit of a taskmaster."

Later he would realize _that_ was the exact moment the conversation went wrong, but in the moment it didn't seem anything more than a light observation.

"What _else_ did Sirius say about our father?" the younger Black brother asked, his voice cold. James barely noticed—Sirius's younger brother was so oddly formal, compared to Padfoot, he could hardly tell the difference.

"Not much. He doesn't like to talk about your parents, as a general rule." James rubbed the back of his head and yawned. "There's no love lost there, as you know."

The room might've dropped in temperature, for the sudden iciness of Regulus's demeanor.

"Yes, well, even so—" He turned back to the book. "It doesn't stop my father for making _plans_ for him."

James dropped his hands to the couch and turned, to gape at Regulus. He was not smiling.

"What do you mean, 'making plans'?"

Regulus's lips curled. He was not about to share the intimacies of his family with this interloper—not that Potter could even understand such things—but the old resentment of his brother's friend made it too difficult to resist rubbing it in what _he_ knew and Potter _didn't_.

"I don't know for sure, but…" He took a kind of malicious pleasure in the look of surprise on Potter's face. "I _think_ he and my mother are working on rehabilitating his reputation in our family."

James was more puzzled than ever.

"I mean…he _did_ tell you he's still the Black family heir, right?" Regulus asked, casual but pointed.

Potter dropped the magazine on the floor.

" _What?_ "

"My father never actually disinherited him when he ran away—and I don't think he intends to now." There was just the trace of bitterness in Regulus's voice—though it was drowned out by his grim enjoyment of shocking the other man, who looked at this point as though _he_ was the one who'd fallen off a broom onto a coach house.

"Your dad doesn't think Sirius is actually going to…to— _come back_ , does he?" James asked, his bewilderment fast turning to shock and outrage. "Take over the Black family, come live in their house, and all that?"

Regulus had slipped back into the haughty Black mask with ease.

"Sure seems like it," he said, quietly.

James leapt off the couch. Regulus watched him pace the length of the room, his stare impassive and in-control.

"But—there's no way he'll agree to that!" he said, turning around. "Sirius hates all of that pureblood, aristocratic nonsense. He _hates it!_ He always said he'd fling himself off a bridge before he went back to that life—"

"Yeah, well," Regulus sneered, and examined the corner of his book, utterly unconcerned. "That was before my father _got something_ on him."

Another shoe dropped. James stopped pacing at once, and his face froze in shock.

"What makes you think that your father—"

"—Because Sirius all but told me," Regulus said, bluntly, looking up. Potter was still frozen in place—to the teenager on the couch, in that moment his old Quidditch rival almost looked like a startled deer. "He won't say _what_ it is—only that he's doing something illegal and he _stupidly_ let our father find out about it. I guess that's why every time our dad snaps his fingers Sirius jumps to attention. He never used to _before_."

Regulus laughed unpleasantly and closed the book, his taste for the work evidently at an end. He stood up, Phineas Nigellus's masterpiece under one arm, and glided past the table where Lily's uneaten half of a pie still lay. Potter stood by the television, shell-shocked as anything. The broom magazine lay forgotten on the floor.

When he reached the door, he turned around.

"If you don't believe me, you should ask him about it," he said, mildly. "I'm sure he wouldn't lie to _you_."

And with that, he shut the door behind him, leaving James Potter to stare at the smooth reflection of the old black-and-white television set—alone.

* * *

Lucretia had wanted another smoke, and at her brother's urging—he was too much a lover of books to let his sister damage them with her filthy habit—had wandered out of the library a quarter hour before and left Orion brooding by the fire.

Telling her so much had probably been a mistake. In the moment it had felt a relief, to unburden himself to a sympathetic ear—with a quarter hour's distance, though, the damned recklessness of it struck him. Lucy was not known for her discretion, after all.

He sighed. Of course—what good was discretion going to do him? It was only a matter of time before the truth came out, and then there would be only one way it could end for Orion's family: in disgrace and shame. Once Arcturus found out he was cooperating with Dumbledore, no excuse was going to be good enough: taking orders from a Muggle-lover was an unforgivable crime, never mind if the alternative had been death to them all.

His father probably thought death was preferable.

Orion laughed, bitterly—Sirius was _so_ afraid of his mother trying to bully him back into the family, when it was far more likely that the three of them would be joining _him_ in exile. He pictured Walburga and he on the doorstep of his son's Lisson Grove flat, trunks dragged behind them as they prepared to make their stay permanent. It wasn't such an absurd thought—could very easily come to pass, in fact.

If something worse didn't happen to them first.

A gust of cold, strong air blew through the library, drawing him out of his thoughts. Orion looked up from the fire and in the direction it had come from—the crystalline French doors that lead out into the gardens. Though he did not let it show, when Mr. Black saw the man who had opened the doors and stepped inside the library, he felt a jolt of surprise in the pit of his stomach.

" _Rabastan_?"

Rabastan Lestrange started. The tall, dark-haired man of nearly thirty had stepped into the library and, busy with unfastening his heavy winter cloak—Orion could see from a dozen steps away that it was covered in ice—had not noticed the sole occupant of the room.

"Orion!" Rabastan stopped brushing the snow off his cloak and hastily threw it onto the window seat. Mr. Black had stood up and walked towards him. The older man noticed there was a slightly nervous tremor in his voice. "I thought—I was expecting…."

He had much the look of his brother—they had the same heavy brows, though the younger, unmarried brother lacked Rodolphus's self-assurance, he had never seemed quite comfortable in his own skin. That fact was made painfully obvious by his twitchy manners now.

Mr. Black instantly knew that he didn't want him there.

"I seem to have startled you, Rabastan." Orion held out his hand. "I apologize. I didn't know you were here."

"I—I just arrived," Lestrange said, taking the hand. "You're…the first person I've seen."

Mr. Black raised an eyebrow.

"Do you _normally_ come in Malfoy Manor by way of the library?"

Rabastan laughed—Mr. Black immediately heard the falseness of it.

"Not usually, no," he replied, his smile tight. "I—well, being so late, I was eager not to draw attention to myself."

"I see." Orion's eyes narrowed, and he gestured to the cloak hanging off the window seat. Snow and ice were dripping onto the carpet. "Have you been…traveling?

"Ah—"

He was spared having to answer by the library door opening. Orion caught the tail-end of a hushed but audible conversation.

 _"—_ _Won't be coming back until after the new year. Karkaroff will have made sure of that."_

 _"_ _I_ bet _he will, the forked tongue—"_

Abruptly the first man shushed the second one, and when Mr. Black turned around, he was unsurprised to find his two nephews-in-law: Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange, the former wearing his customary guarded and sly expression, the latter eying him with something more akin to outright dislike.

"Orion!" Lucius's cold eyes flashed in surprise , then darted to the younger man, still standing by the window. "And—Rabastan—at last. What a pleasant surprise." He smoothed his robes, absently. "How long have—the two of you been here?"

His voice had an unusually strangled quality. Orion's presence in the library had obviously taken him off-guard—but Mr. Black could see quite plainly that he was not surprised in the slightest that Rabastan was here.

Curious…

"I came in the library to have a private conversation with my sister a while ago and—thought I'd stay. Rabastan is a recent welcome interruption to my…reverie." He nodded at his other nephew by marriage, curtly. The elder Lestrange returned the gesture with rather less politeness. "Rodolphus—you must've arrived not long ago as well. How are you?"

"Fine," the thickset man said, brusque and unsmiling. "You?"

Mr. Black's eyes flitted between the two brothers, but he made no comment on the oddness—or lack-thereof—of the two Lestranges coming to the party late and minutes apart—and yet, apparently separately.

"Well. Very well indeed," he replied, with polite courtesy. "And is Bellatrix with you?"

"She's not," Lestrange replied, still terse. "Couldn't come. Sends her regrets, and a happy birthday to your father."

Rodolphus stepped forward into the light; it was then that Mr. Black noticed the dress robes he wore were slightly too small for him, the dark green velvet stretched over his broad shoulders and chest. They were Lucius Malfoy's robes, not his.

Orion raised a single eyebrow. Bellatrix's husband hadn't come to this party _dressed_ properly. He cleared his throat.

"I hope she's well," Mr. Black replied, a tad colder. "Not under the weather. She's never been of a… _delicate_ disposition."

Lestrange sniggered, humorlessly.

"That's certainly true." Lucius shot him a look, and Rodolphus fixed his expression into the usual dull blank. "Bella's not ill, she's just…indisposed."

There was a long pause. Orion looked between the three younger men, all staring at him, and he was suddenly keenly aware that it was not mere coincidence that had brought them to this room. Whatever their purpose, his presence was serving as a hindrance to it. This stirred his curiosity.

Lucius stepped forward, and swept an elegant bow.

"I've actually been looking for you, Orion," Malfoy said—he had managed to recover his sleek smoothness of manner and voice. "I didn't see you in the ballroom, so I came into the hall—and who should I run into but Rodolphus?" Malfoy tossed his head elegantly in the direction of his taciturn brother-in-law, still regarding the older man with suspicion. "Naturally, I recruited him to help me look for you."

The story was such a blatant fabrication that Orion could've laughed at it—if he were in a mood to laugh.

"Naturally," he said, eyes sliding back over to Lestrange. "And what did you need me for, Lucius?"

"I wanted to ask you for a favor."

"I hope I can oblige you."

"You see, Narcissa—has grown rather weary of the country, and as my father and I are tied up with estate business until Christmas, I can't entertain her as I feel she…deserves." From behind him, Orion heard Rabastan shuffle his feet. "I wondered if she could stay with you in London for a few days."

Now it was Orion's turn to be thrown off. It was really not such an absurd request—Grimmauld Place was the family seat, and there was not a single Black who had not at some point stayed as a guest while visiting London. His wife was fond of Narcissa—she was her favorite niece—there was no reason for him to say _no_.

Nevertheless—there was something about the look on the shrewd Malfoy heir's face that gave him pause.

"I'd—have to check with Walburga," he said, slowly—already acutely aware that his wife had little desire to entertain in their current situation. "But I see no reason why she shouldn't be able to stay."

"Thank you, sir. I think a change of scene would suit her immensely."

Lucius stepped aside to let Orion pass, and he felt a jab of displeasure in his chest. He narrowed his eyes at this unsubtle gesture—so they thought they were going to get rid of him that easily, did they?

"Well—" He took a step towards the door. "I suppose I ought to—get back to the party."

All three of them relaxed in unison. Orion stopped and turned around.

"By the way, Lucius—" he said, casually. "Any word on your…intruder problem? Did you find the culprits?"

The light was dim, but Orion was sure he saw Lucius exchange a knowing look with Rodolphus.

"Oh, that?" Lucius drawled, waving his hand with a studied carelessness. "A total false alarm. Bad information. I beg you not to think of it, sir."

Orion put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. The low chattering grew louder as he opened the door.

"So you're certain that there's no one here who shouldn't be?"

Malfoy's smile looked more strained than ever.

"I'm sure." Lucius paused. "Why do you ask? I hope none of the guests roused your suspicion."

"No. Of course not."

He gave each of them a polite smile and left the library, closing the door behind him. Orion looked out over the sea of relations and Malfoy family friends, milling about the party.

He was overcome with a single-minded purpose: and it was not, as Narcissa's husband would've liked, to find his wife and ask permission to host her. He had no desire to tousle with her over domestic concerns—he'd had quite enough of his family tonight, frankly.

What Orion wanted was a distraction—and sussing out this supposed intruder was just the thing to do it. It stirred his pride—and curiosity, though he was more focused on the former than the latter. Curiosity was not looked at as a virtue in his family.

He scanned the room, looking for potential suspects—then noticed movement from the far corner which drew his eye like a magnet. Two people, barely visible, hidden by a stone pillar. It was the tall, Norwegian man—Nicolaus Svensson—deep in an animated conversation with the Battancourt girl.

The expression on the Svensson's face when they had locked eyes rose up in Orion's mind, and he had the same feeling he had gotten when he'd first spotted him walking into the ballroom, an oddly familiar sensation of knowing a deceiver at work.

 _That man is not who he says he is._

 _That_ was the man.

He narrowed his eyes. Orion intended to find out who he was—and why he was here.

Arcturus would no doubt be pleased when he presented his father with the proof that his orders had been obeyed—a fitting birthday gift for the irascible patriarch.

Maybe he'd actually be pleased with his son, for once.

* * *

Sirius wanted a smoke. Desperately.

He was in doubt about how plausible Nicolaus Svensson with a Winston light in hand would seem to the objective observer, and blowing his cover over a cheap cig did not seem worth it at this stage of the game, so he resisted the urge to reach into his robes for the pack that he always carried.

A smoke would have soothed his nerves, though. It also would have provided a concrete reason for standing out here on the balcony of Malfoy Manor, waiting for Frank.

They called it a balcony—but it was really more correctly a stone terrace _shaped_ like a balcony. When Roland Malfoy had decided to renovate the seat of his family, a balcony had been one of his desired additions, and he had paid a not inconsiderable amount of gold for one made of Italian marble. When the commission arrived in three separate pieces, in a carriage suspended by thestrals, it quickly became apparent that the pieces were so ornate and overlarge the only room it could be attached to and not be an eyesore was the ballroom.

Roland was not about to let his money go to waste. As the ballroom was on the ground floor, so in it had gone—suspended less than four feel above the sweeping front lawn of the house.

Sirius had been the one to suggest this spot as a place for he and Frank to rendezvous, if they got separated. When he'd told the Auror he knew Malfoy Manor, Longbottom had wanted to know where it was they'd be unlikely to be disturbed, and Sirius had thought of this place at once.

It was not the first time he'd needed a place to hide in this house.

 _The night was warm—a bright and dusky July day had turned into a languid summer evening, as they so often did. The fifteen-year-old boy leaned far over the stone balustrade, like he was ready to spring from the terrace into the flowerbed of crocuses below, and he surreptitiously sucked down the single cigarette he had managed, against all odds, to sneak in._

 _The best thing that could be said about today was that it was almost over._

Only forty-seven days until September first, _Sirius thought. They would make it back to Grimmauld Place after midnight, so he could tear another sheet off the makeshift countdown calendar he'd made from spare parchment and stuck on his door. Forty-six days._

 _"_ There _you are!"_

 _A wave of sickly dread came over him, and he hastily threw the cigarette into the flower bushes and spun around._

 _Tonight his mother was dressed to the nines—pearls and an elegant silver gown—but the expression of severe displeasure at the sight of Sirius she wore was an everyday look. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared, ready to fight at a moment's notice._

 _One always had to be, with her._

 _"_ _Have you been hiding out here all this time?"_

 _"_ _I am not hiding!" he lied, and he risked a peak back around and down at the flowerbed. His cigarette, still lit, was teetering between a leaf and rosebud. If he got rid of her quickly he might be able to salvage it._

 _"_ _Come back inside at once. Everyone is asking after you." Her voice was severe, but not cold. "There's a large group of young people, I saw them. You should join in."_

 _"_ _I don't want to talk to any of those people—"_

 _"_ _Your_ brother _doesn't seem to have any trouble socializing."_

 _And there it was. The comparison. It had only taken—what, thirty seconds for her to make it? Wasn't even a record._

 _"_ _That's because they're_ his _friends, not mine," he answered, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice—it would give her too much satisfaction to know that she got to him._ _"They don't like me, anyway."_

 _Walburga tutted and rolled her eyes. He was long past the point of trying to explain to his mother why he would never be friends with the Evan Rosiers of the world._

 _She looked beautiful tonight—and the festive atmosphere surrounding the wedding in conjunction with several glasses of ratafia had put her in such an unusually good mood that he had been very much hoping to avoid this confrontation, because he felt sure he was going to spoil it for her._

 _His mother put her hands on her hips._

 _"_ _Nonsense. Why shouldn't they?" she demanded, unable to see a sensible reason why her friends and acquaintances' children shouldn't like her son._

 _"_ _Because I'm in Gryffindor" was the obvious answer—but he had no interest in kicking over that rock, and anyway, most of them hadn't liked him before Hogwarts, either—and that had been, ironically enough, because of his family. The Blacks thought so well of themselves that they failed to grasp the rest of wizard-kind didn't share their enthusiasm—that their so-called 'friends' were waiting with baited breath for the first whiff of a scandal that would lead to the family being knocked off its self-styled pedestal._

 _Sirius suspected all his parents' friends had told their children it was likely to be him that caused the ruin of the Blacks—or maybe they were just jealous he was cleverer, better-looking and more popular than all of them._

 _"_ _Must be a personality problem."_

 _She narrowed her eyes._

 _"_ _You are perfectly capable of making yourself agreeable, Sirius Orion. That is not an excuse—"_

 _"_ _Well it's the only thing I could come up with on short notice." Walburga's cheeks colored. "Look, I didn't even want to come to this. I told you."_

 _"_ _It is your cousin's wedding!"_

 _"_ _And she doesn't give a damn if I'm here," he pointed out, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress robes moodily. "In fact, she probably wishes I wasn't."_

 _"_ _Don't be rude."_

 _"_ _Is telling the truth 'being rude', now?"_

 _All good will vanished from her face. Her nostrils flared, dangerously._

 _"_ _I'm not going to stand out here all evening having absurd arguments with you. You'll go socialize with your brother and the other children if I have to march you over there myself."_

 _This humiliating mental picture made his stomach turn—or perhaps it was the residual nausea from the fag. He wasn't really used to them, yet._

 _"_ _No, I'm not."_

 _She glided towards him, her wand out, and on pure reflex he pushed his back up against the balustrade._

 _"_ _Yes, you_ are _—"_

 _"_ _Walburga? Is that you out there?"_

 _The voice came from behind her, at the door, and Sirius peaked around her shoulder at the source of the mild-mannered voice. It was a portly, stout man of about forty—bearded, clever eyes twinkling in the light that streamed in from the ballroom. His hands were full, carrying two champagne flutes._

 _"_ _I'd wondered where you'd gotten to, Burgie," Over her shoulder, Alphard Black smiled at his nephew. "Both of you."_

 _Walburga stiffened at her brother's invocation of the dreaded childhood nickname._

 _"_ _Alphard," she said, turning to face him. "I just came out here to find out where my son had hidden himself away, and why," She turned back towards said son and fixed him with a severe look. "Apparently he thinks all the other children here are beneath him."_

 _"_ _Well, I mean—he isn't wrong, is he?" her brother said, cheerily. "They are. Though I suppose it's not good manners to show it."_

 _Sirius had to admire his uncle's nerve. He didn't even lose the twinkle in his eye at her withering glare in his direction. He winked at his nephew, and safely out of his mother's eye-line, Sirius allowed himself a small smile._

 _"_ _That is not the point!" Alphard walked across the balcony, past his sister and to the railing where Sirius still stood, and he set down the two flutes of champagne. "What are you doing here, anyway?"_

 _The words were full of unspoken accusation, and she rounded on Sirius, now looking hopefully at his uncle, eager for an ally._

 _"_ _Papa sent me to find you, Burgie." His eyes swept over the scene—and it was obvious from the clever snap of his gaze that he had ascertained the true state of things rather quickly._

 _"_ _I will go to him when I am finished dealing with—"_

 _"_ _He said it was urgent. Mama needs attending to, I think." She fell into a rare bout of speechlessness—Alphard had said the magic words. Granny Irma was the one person Sirius's mother never dared cross. "Best not dawdle."_

 _He put a hand on his nephew's shoulder._

 _"_ _I'll see that your son makes his way back inside, Walburga. Don't worry."_

 _Eyes narrowed, she looked between nephew and uncle, deeply suspicious—as if she thought left to their own devices they would plot against her._

 _"_ _Fine," she said, haughtily—eyes still fixed on her son. "But don't think you're getting out of this, Sirius Orion. We will discuss your behavior when we get home."_

 _With that promise, she turned around and swept out of the terrace and back into the house._

 _Sirius turned back around and peered over the edge of the bannister at his lost fag. The cigarette had fully burned out. A thin, sad trail of smoke wafted up in his face—he slouched against the stone. Great._

 _He looked back around at his uncle and found Alphard fixing him with a curious, intent expression. Sirius cleared his throat, awkwardly—he wanted to thank him, but to thank him would admit that he had needed help._

 _"_ _Who's that for?" the teenager asked, pointing at the extra flute of champagne. Alphard smiled._

 _"_ _It's for you."_

 _Hand trembling slightly, he picked up the glass of champagne._

 _"…_ _Thanks."_

 _His uncle picked up the second glass and raised it in the air._

 _"_ _I think a toast is in order. There were about fifteen to the bride in there, so let's say—" He shot a sly smile to Sirius, who returned it—with less enthusiasm. "To the groom?"_

 _Sirius raised his own flute and clinked it into Alphard's in a kind of ironic salute._

 _"_ _To the groom. May he prove to be less of a prick than common report suggests."_

 _Sirius tried to down the entire glass of champagne, but it was stronger than he'd expected, and he choked. His uncle, chortling, slapped him on the back._

 _"_ _Now—that sort of remark doesn't seem in the spirit of the occasion."_

 _"_ _I'm not in a festive mood, Uncle Alphard."_

 _He leaned back over the bannister and stared out at the front lawn. Over the tops of the ornamental bushes, to the wrought-iron gate that separated the estate from the road. There were heavy trees—he thought he could just see the twinkling lights of the nearest Muggle village through the thicket._

 _He could feel his uncle still watching him._

 _"_ _It's not like my favorite nephew to be a wall-flower," he remarked, casually. "What exactly is your objection to your cousins' set?"_

 _"_ _Only that they're all a bunch of stinking Slytherins," he answered, bluntly—then, remembering who it was he was talking to, added, "No offense."_

 _Alphard laughed and took another sip of wine._

 _"_ _None taken."_

 _Sighing, Sirius turned back around to face his mother's brother._

 _"_ _You've grown very tall since Christmas. And you look more like your father than ever, you handsome devil." Alphard grinned. "I hope you take more advantage of that face than he did at your age."_

 _Sirius snorted. He heard it often enough to know it was meant to be a compliment, but it never felt like it._

 _"_ _I was just talking to Orion about you." At the mention of his father, Sirius's frown deepened. "I hear you're doing very well in school—top of your class—but that you're also a notorious rabble-rouser. Is it true your head of house sends owls twice a week?"_

 _"_ _It's the only thing that makes me wish I had Sluggy as head instead of McGonagall," Sirius said, glumly. "He wouldn't bother to write, except to flatter them by going on about how brilliant I am."_

 _"_ _Why're you in detention so much, anyway?"_

 _He slugged down the rest of the champagne—it was too sweet, but he wanted the feeling of numbness it would give him, anyway—and chucked the glass into the bushes, near where he'd dropped his cigarette._

 _"_ _Because I like to have fun! Is that a crime?"_

 _Alphard's smile turned rather sad, and he set his own flute down._

 _"_ _I'm afraid in this family it can be," he said, his tone light._

 _Sirius let out another protracted and heavy sigh._

 _"_ _I can't believe you actually_ traveled _here for this, Uncle Alphard," Sirius said, staring at his uncle in disbelief. Alphard shrugged._

 _"_ _It's not every day you get to see the last of your nieces married." His nephew crinkled his nose. "Or your entire family in one place."_

 _The teenager threw a dark look at the doorway through which his mother had disappeared a minute before. The entire family, minus Alphard and himself, were all in there. It was like a misery parade—he had needed to come out here just to breathe._

 _"_ _How far do you think I could make it, if I ran?"_

 _Sirius was looking over the lawn again, gauging the height of the stone balcony. Humoring him, Alphard looked from the boy to the countryside in front of him._

 _"_ _Oh—to the edge of those box hedges, I'd think. There are enchantments all over this house—and you still have the trace on you."_

 _"_ _And there's her," he murmured, quietly. "I guess_ she _wouldn't let me get far."_

 _There was a long silence between them, broken only by the sound of crickets and the distant drum of the wedding celebration, still in full swing._

 _"_ _Sirius…I know you it's hard for you to understand, but your mother—" Sirius sucked in a sharp breath. "She is trying to do right by you, in her own way."_

 _"_ _That's rich! Tell me another one."_

 _"_ _I mean it."_

 _His face twisted, nostrils flared just like his mother. The boy was suddenly very angry—though not at Alphard, or even his mother. He couldn't pinpoint the exact cause of it, which only made him angrier._

 _"_ _The only thing she cares about is making sure I don't make her look bad in front of her friends or the rest of the family." He pulled out his wand and waved it at at the azaleas. One of them burst into flames. "Apart from that, she doesn't give a damn about me."_

 _Alphard looked very much as if he wanted to say something—but he held back, instead carefully watching the teenager, strong but brittle—always itching for a fight._

 _"_ _I can't wait until I'm of age," Sirius said, quietly. "I'll never have to come to another party like this again—ever."_

 _"_ _What do you mean?"_

 _He looked 'round at his uncle, squared him up—considering. Was it worth the risk admitting the plan he'd been pondering in secret all summer?_

 _"_ _Once I'm of age…I'm going to leave."_

 _This admission didn't shock his uncle, as Sirius would have expected. Alphard looked neither surprised by it nor disapproving. There was no judgement in his expression._

 _"_ _When you say 'leave'…you mean leave the family?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _Another long pause._

 _"_ _That's not going to work," his uncle said, calmly._

 _Sirius turned red, and his eyes widened._

 _"_ _Yes, it will!" he stammered, defensively. "I don't need their money. I'm smart—I'm good at fending for myself—"_

 _"_ _I'm not talking about gold, Sirius." Alphard gently turned Sirius around with a hand to face him. His expression was grave. "A man can do without gold. Most men do. There are other things, though…"_

 _"_ _What are you talking about, Uncle Alphard?"_

 _He was angry—he had expected Alphard to understand, to support him, even if he hadn't walked away, everyone in the family knew he kept his distance for a reason._

 _"_ _It's a lesson everyone has to learn, sooner or later."_

 _"_ _What lesson?"_

 _"_ _That not everything in life is a choice." The bearded man's eyes crinkled good-naturedly, but his tone was deadly serious. "Some things just are."_

 _"_ _I don't understand—"_

 _"_ _You'll be a Black until the day you die, my boy—whether you like it or not. You can try to deny it all you want…" Alphard trailed off. "But it won't make it any less true."_

The door opened behind Sirius, and the sound snapped him out his remembrances of a half-decade before with the man who had been cold in his grave for two years. Before he could think or look or wonder why he was doing it, he had flung himself over the bannister and into the thick bushes below the balcony.

Heart pounding, he peered through the gap in the stone—at the feet of the approaching interloper. Was it Frank, at last?

No…the bottom of the gown, the delicate steps—a woman had stepped out onto the balcony. Pressed up against the base of the stone dais, he didn't risk a look up at her face. It was bitterly cold, so he was surprised to see anyone besides Longbottom—let alone a woman dressed in a thin gown—braving the elements.

He heard her shuffling around, the snap of what must surely be a clutch being opened. And then smelled the smoke, and he knew who it was—Aunt Lucretia.

The door opened again, this with a bang, as if it had been flung open by someone in a bad temper.

"Ah- _ha_. So _here's_ where you've been hiding, my girl."

The cold imperious voice made his blood freeze. Arcturus.

"Oh—Papa…" Sirius heard the catch of hesitation in her voice. "You shouldn't be out here. It's so cold."

Slow, deliberate steps and the clink of an ivory walking cane—oh yes, that was granddad, alright, Sirius thought, glaring at the buckled shoes just visible from under his velvet dress robes.

"Concerned about my health, are you, Lucretia?" The steps stopped. "Put that away at once. I don't care if you have it on a diamond-encrusted stick, smoking's unwomanly."

"Fine."

There was a soft but irritated sigh, the hiss of the cigarette being put out and the snap of the clutch being hastily shut.

"You really shouldn't be out in this chill, Papa—not at your age."

"Speaking of my age…" Arcturus lowered his voice. He was so naturally commanding that even in a whisper Sirius could've picked the words a room away. "It's supposed to be my birthday, and my own _daughter_ hasn't seen fit to greet me."

For once, Lucretia didn't have a smart rejoinder.

"You've had so many people to entertain, I didn't want to interfere—"

"—Interfere? Pah! Every time my back's turned I catch you creeping out of the hall. Don't think I didn't see you drag your brother off into the library a little while ago." Sirius's eyes widened. "I suppose my children thought it would be a lark to cavort behind my back."

"We were not _cavorting_!"

Sirius was amazed—though he'd never been overly fond of his aunt, he did have a grudging respect for her—she had guts,in her way. This harassed-sounding woman being mercilessly bullied by her father didn't seem like the Lucretia he knew at all.

"I suppose he sniveled to you?" Arcturus sneered. "Dragged my name through the muck, cursed me?"

"Orion has never said a harsh word about you in his life, Papa, and you know it!" Lucretia shot back, indignant. Sirius was surprised to find in his chest a burning feeling of his own indignance —on his father's behalf.

The feeling startled him…where had it come from? But before he could think too hard on it, Arcturus was speaking again, in his customary imperious voice.

"He's thought plenty of 'em, I assure you—he just doesn't have the nerve to say them out loud." Arcturus let out a humorless laugh. "A grown man who needs his sister's protection—"

"Any man would, with _you_ as a father."

Sirius heard Lucretia gasp, and he was sure that his grandfather had grabbed his aunt by the arm and yanked her towards him.

"I will _not_ be spoken to like that." She murmured something Sirius couldn't catch—an apology, probably. "Where's Ignatius, anyway? I give the man my only daughter, and not only does he see fit to let her run about like a hoyden, he doesn't even show his face at family events."

"I don't recall mandatory attendance of your _birthday_ being one of the agreed upon details in the marriage contract," his aunt replied, coldly, and she let out another gasp. Sirius peered through the gap and saw he was eye-to-eye with her, still gripping her arm—by the looks of it, hard.

"Don't be smart with me—or I'll make you regret it," her father ordered, in a dangerously soft voice. "If your husband's going to let you loose and can't even be bothered to _control_ you, he can't object when _I_ do it for him."

He released her just as quickly, and Lucretia stumbled back from him.

"Really, Papa!" she said, and Sirius could see she was rubbing her wrist. "First Orion, now me…what an odd way to spend your birthday, haranguing your children."

This chastisement was so feeble her father didn't even comment on it.

"So he _did_ complain to you," the sly old man said, his voice shrewd. "He _was_ licking his wounds, last I saw him. I suppose he told you _why_ he got a dressing down."

She didn't respond for a long while. Sirius strained his ears, afraid he wouldn't be able to catch his aunt's words.

"You…you really ought to ease up on 'Rion over the—over Regulus and the marriage, Papa," Lucretia said, after another long pause. Sirius noticed her feet had backed up a healthy distance from his. "He's under a lot of—of strain—"

"Why should he be under any more strain than the rest of us?" A pause, then—in a voice of undisguised calculation. "…Did he by any chance make a _confession_ to you, girl?"

"No—of course not!" Her voice had caught in the telltale way. "Why—why would you even ask such a thing?"

"Orion's hiding something from me, that's why."

Concealed in the shrubbery out of sight, Arcturus's grandson shivered.

"I'm sure that's not true! He _never_ lies—"

"Well he's lying now!" Arcturus barked. "Don't argue with me—a man always knows when his son is deceiving him…or in his case— _trying_ to deceive."

"You're wrong, Papa."

"He's been acting odd all night," Sirius's grandfather continued, grimly. "Says he won't play cards with the rest of us—he's been distracted—more-so than usual. Mark my words, that boy's up to something—" His voice turned low and dangerous again. "And if you know anything about it, speak now—because if I find out you've lied to me as well, my girl…"

The thinly veiled threat lingered in the air.

"I don't know anything," Lucretia said, in a frigid voice. All of a sudden she sounded like she had a cold.

Sirius watched the feet start to walk towards the door—until his grandfather sprung forward—with surprising speed for a man of his age—and grabbed her by the arm.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" Arcturus hissed in his daughter's ear. "We are not done here, Lucretia Black! Don't you _dare_ walk away from me."

"My name is Lucretia Prewett, and I am going _home_." She violently jerked her arm out of his grasp. "To my husband. He—he said he wanted me back before midnight, and you know I do like to _obey_ him."

The anger and hurt in her voice rang clear, and Sirius was certain that if he were to look in his aunt's face he would find tears there, now. It was all he could do not to vault back over the railing again and deck the miserable old bastard, forget his wand.

What a great bully Arcturus was—and his heart had grown even more calcified in the past three years.

"Happy birthday, Papa," she said quietly, from the door. "I'll—see you at Christmas."

She opened it, and there was a scuffling sound, and to his surprise a third set of feet and third voice entered the conversation.

"Ah—Mrs. Prewett!"

It was Frank.

"Oh, Mr. Klöcker—" Lucretia tried to discreetly wipe her eyes so that Klöcker—Frank—wouldn't see, but it was too late. "I didn't see you there. I'm sorry. Have you…" She shuffled around awkwardly to let the new set of feet past. "Have you met my father, Arcturus, yet? Papa, this is Mr. Klöcker, Mr. Svensson's—associate."

Frank stepped forward to shake the Black patriarch's hand politely.

"Mr. Black—it's a pleasure. May I offer you my felicitations and many happy returns?"

"You may," Arcturus replied, cooly. "You're that Swede's translator, aren't you?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. He was lucky he was talking to Frank and not his elder grandson, because he sure as hell wouldn't have tolerated that kind of lip.

"And friend, yes."

"Hm." The old man cleared his throat. "Let me see you out, Lucretia."

"That's quite alright, Papa." The appearance of Frank seemed to have roused her courage, for her voice was firm again. "I really need to get back to Ignatius. Mr. Klöcker, it was a pleasure. I do hope you and Mr. Svensson will not be strangers, that we'll see you again. I found him to be a most stimulating conversationalist."

"I'm sure the feeling was mutual, Madame," Frank said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "I hope we meet again."

"Goodnight, then. And you, Papa."

She closed the door behind her, leaving her father and the young foreigner alone. There was a long moment of protracted empty air that Sirius had to imagine—as he could not see for himself—consisted of his elderly grandfather glowering at the Auror in disguise.

And he didn't even know who he was.

"You came out her for a smoke, did you?"

"Was that why Mrs. Prewett was on the balcony?" Frank asked, in his mildest tone of voice. "No, sir, I did not wish to smoke. I was looking for my…associate, Svensson."

"So you lost the Swede," the old man remarked, dryly. "You work for him?"

The sneer in his voice was not subtle.

"It's—more informal. We are friends, but I handle some of his business, and assist in…matters that require a more delicate touch."

"So he _is_ as dull as he looks." A thoughtful pause. "He must pay you well, to drag you about to things like this. Everyone thinks you're his _man_ , you know."

Frank evidently didn't see being mistaken as a wizard's valet as the great insult Sirius's grandfather thought it, for his reply was as polite as ever.

"He is shy—and I have no cause to complain. He is an attentive friend," Frank said, slowly. "Have you seen him?"

Sirius heard the exaggerated yawn and rolled his eyes, scoffing into the roses. At least the old man was catching on that Frank wasn't an entertaining plaything, and would get bored and wander back inside to terrorize some other poor sod.

"Can't say I have. I suspect Abraxas Malfoy is working him over as we speak." Arcturus lowered his voice. "I'd watch your employer like a hawk when you _do_ find him—and tell him to be very careful in the game."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because they know how much he's worth. You haven't been in this country long, so I'll give you a tip—" Arcturus chuckled, dryly. "Never leave an open pocketbook in clear sight of a Malfoy—he'll dump the gold out, fit the leather from it to his shoe and try to sell it back to you at twice the price."

This homespun Black wisdom, generously given from the old man, left Frank momentarily speechless.

"…I'll bear that in mind."

"Do. Even if you don't leave this country richer, at least you won't be a pauper." The Black patriarch clicked his ivory cane against the marble. "Best of luck in your search."

Before Longbottom could even venture an attempt at a farewell, the cantankerous septuagenarian had marched back into the hall and slammed the door shut behind him.

He waited three seconds before popping his head up.

"Charming man, isn't he?" Frank started in surprise, and he turned to find Sirius taking advantage of Svensson's long limbs to pull himself back up over the balustrade. The Auror's face split into a relieved smile.

" _There_ you are—!" He crossed to the edge and seized Black by the hand, pulling him back onto the balcony. "I was beginning to get worried."

"Why? _You're_ the one who's late." He brushed some of the dirt off his dress robes. "What took you?"

"Got caught up with Malfoy—" They exchanged a dark look—then Frank began to grin. "Merlin, does your grandfather have that family pegged! I almost broke my cover from laughing when I heard his little aphorism."

"And that was him talking about his _best friend_." Sirius shook his head. "You should hear him on his _enemies_."

"Is that actually something people say about the Malfoys, or did he make it up on the spot?" Frank asked, still holding back a laugh. Sirius smiled, grimly.

"I wouldn't put it past him. He's a complete and utter bastard—but a clever one." He sighed and ran a hand through the short, blond hair. "I'll tell you, Frank, I have not missed the old man—nor anyone else at this party."

Longbottom's expression turned serious.

"How's it been?" he asked, and even disguised Sirius could see the familiar Frank expression—kind concern under his resolve. Longbottom was a good man, even if he was rather by-the-book. "Any…hitches?"

Sirius thought of the girl and hesitated—but only for a moment. Surely if she was going to give him away, he'd have already been caught by now. She wasn't—he didn't know why, but he was certain Colette Battancourt would not have _willingly_ ratted him out.

He just had a feeling about her.

"Apart from my own aunt making a pass at me," he said, tone heavily sarcastic. "I'd say it's gone about as well as it could."

Frank looked over his shoulder to check that they were still alone.

"Did you see _them_?"

At the conversation turning to the two brothers—the ostensible targets of their operation, the real reason they had come in disguise—Sirius furrowed his brow.

"No. They were no-shows, as far as I know—but I did hear they were both supposed to be here—" Frank shot him a questioning look, and he added, hastily. " _Those women_ you left me with were talking about it."

Not entirely a lie—but he'd neglected to mention it was only one, Colette, and she'd told him directly, in English, the language he'd been pretending he couldn't speak or understand. No need for Longbottom to learn that part.

"'Those women', eh?" Frank repeated, giving Sirius a probing look. "Tell me, Black—which one of _those women_ was your mother?"

The younger man shot him an annoyed look.

"The one who looked like she'd sooner rip out your throat than talk to you," Sirius muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets. "That wasn't funny, leaving me alone like that!"

"All part of the job." Frank gave him an encouraging clap on the shoulder. "Trial by fire."

"You've no idea how _literally_ true that is, with her," Sirius said, half under his breath. "Bloody dragon, that woman."

The smile dropped from Frank's face and he let his arm fall to his side. He cleared his throat.

"—Alice told me you, eh—didn't see much of them." Frank bit his thumb and shifted his weight from one foot to the other; he suddenly looked rather sheepish and almost embarrassed. "Your…erm, you know…"

He trailed off. The Auror didn't mean his eyes, instead looking over his shoulder—Sirius had never seen him so awkward. Suddenly self-conscious, he felt his ears burn. He knew what the look on Frank's face meant, he'd seen it enough times to recognize that particular mixture of pity and discomfort. Usually he made a great show of laughing it off.

He didn't feel like laughing now.

"Who has Alice been talking to?" he asked, sharply. "Lily?"

"I think it was James, actually," Frank admitted, quietly. Sirius's stomach fluttered unpleasantly. "He mentioned how you lived at his mum and dad's place during the holidays for a while, and she was…curious about why."

The pause was just long enough to be uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well, it's—it's a bit—" He waved his arms vaguely. "—Complicated. With them."

"That's only natural, given…" Frank hesitated. "The circumstances."

Sirius didn't like _that_ tone one bit.

"They aren't Death Eaters," he snapped—feeling a wave of defensiveness, his second of the night—just as foreign a feeling now as it had been a few minutes before. "My parents. They're not."

"I didn't say—"

"You were _thinking_ it," Sirius laughed, bitterly, running a hand through his hair again. "Why wouldn't you? It's a natural assumption. You know my brother's one, after all."

Frank fell silent. The December air was frigid—their breaths were visible, and each man watched the other's as they stood together, alone.

"I didn't realize you knew." Sirius swallowed—something seemed to have gotten caught in his throat. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Forget it. It's not…" He let out another long sigh. "It's not why we're here."

The mission. Forget about the family, his troubles, for one night—that's what this mission was supposed to have been, and it was not proving a great success. Far from it, in fact. Everywhere he turned, everywhere he looked— _they_ were there.

He couldn't escape it.

Frank cleared his throat again.

"Listen, that gossip about the Lestranges you heard…" Sirius turned, surprised. "They were right. You may not have seen them yet, but _I_ did—just now, coming out of the library."

"Both?" Sirius's eyes lit up. "Rodolphus _and_ Rabastan?"

"The Brothers Lestrange." Frank's eyes flashed with the old steely determination. He was no longer smiling. "In the flesh."

Excitement stirred—and unexpected rush of adrenaline at the prospect.

"How did they look?"

"Tired—like they'd come from a long journey," Frank said, in a flat voice. "Tired but pleased with themselves."

Sirius let out a sound under his breath not unlike a growl— _of course_ they were.

"Were they alone?"

"No—they were with Malfoy—Lucius, not his father."

Sirius clenched his fist and let out a low whoop of triumph.

"So our information _was_ good." He looked around at Frank, eager and excited again. "What about you? Did you get us into the game?"

Longbottom shook his head, looking rueful. Sirius felt his shoulders droop.

"Yeah—you see, that's where we hit the snag."

"What snag?"

Frank rubbed his forehead, more tired than Sirius had ever seen him.

"I only got one of us in—you." His partner stood up straighter, alert. "Abraxas knows this Klöcker man—the real one—has no gold of his own. The house rule is that if you're not playing for stakes, you're not allowed in the room."

"I'm not supposed to be able to speak English, though! How am I supposed to be able to communicate with them if I don't have a translator?"

"With gestures—you know, universal card language?" Sirius nodded, running the hand symbols—hold, fold, raise—through his head. He _did_ remember them, thankfully: yet another useless thing he'd picked up from the Black family. "Svensson's a notorious gambler—he plays for high stakes all over Europe, in plenty of countries where he can't speak the language. They say it helps him with bluffing, he has a reputation for it." Frank paused. "Personally, I think Abraxas doesn't trust me not to temper his wealthy guest's tendency to bet big."

The younger man threw a look of derision at the glass doors.

"So—I'll go in alone, then?"

Frank's expression hardened.

"No. Whole plan is off." He squared his shoulders and held up his hand, stopping Black's strangled protest before he could even get it out. "We're getting out of here—quickly and quietly."

Sirius stared up at him in shock, mouth hanging open.

"What?" he yelped. "You want to bail _now_? After we've come this far?"

"I don't like it any more than you do." Voice heavy, Frank leaned against the railing. "I don't like _any_ of this. I'm starting to think your initial instincts when we walked in the door were right. Something's off here."

"Beyond all the stinking Death Eaters about, you mean?"

Frank nodded.

"I can't shake the feeling they _know_ , somehow."

"But how could they? The plan was a secret, only Moody and Dumbledore—"

"—I don't know how they figured it out—but it's an instinct I have, and Moody's always told me to follow them. Maybe I wasn't very convincing—Or…" Longbottom hesitated. "Maybe the source of information for this operation isn't trust-worthy."

The source of information…Sirius realized he hadn't even asked how they'd found out about this in the first place. Before he could ask if Frank knew where they'd gotten the intel the Auror continued.

"Either way, the fact _is_ that I'm not sure if our cover's been blown—and Dumbledore told me to get out of here if it was even a question. It's not worth the risk."

"But the information—"

"—Probably isn't even reliable, Black!" Longbottom said, his voice as blunt as a bludgeon. "You know who he told me is going to be in there, playing? Augustus Rookwood!"

"Rookwood…" He knew that name—he ran through the roster of his family's social circle and it came to him. "The _Unspeakable_?"

"Apparently Rookwood's an old pal of Abraxas—he's here, and he asked to be cut into the game at the last minute." Frank frowned. "I doubt even the Lestranges would be stupid enough to pass You-Know-Who's plans in front of a Ministry wizard of _his_ reputation."

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. The last thing he wanted to do was accuse Frank of being naively optimistic over the Lestrange brothers's capacity for stupidity, even if that's exactly what he was thinking in this moment. Longbottom read his expression at once.

"I know you're willing, but I don't want you going in there alone, Black—it's too risky."

"But—"

"I'm not willing to put your neck on the line with no back-up, Sirius!" Frank said, his voice brooking no argument. "That's an order."

The younger man fell silent. Sirius fidgeted uncomfortable under Frank's penetrating, stern gaze.

"Look, I know you're disappointed—but that's how these missions go sometimes." He grasped Black's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "It's like the game: you have to know when to bluff and when to fold and walk away."

Sirius bit the inside his cheek.

"Right."

Frank gave him a friendly pat, then let go of his shoulder and began walking towards the door.

"Come on. I've got to make our excuses to the ladies. I don't want to give them the satisfaction of thinking they scared us off."

"In a minute."

Frank turned around and narrowed his eyes. Sirius stared back, impassively.

"I just want to check one more thing, Frank. I'll catch you up—I promise."

The Auror looked less than enthused.

"I'll meet you in main hall outside the ballroom—ten minutes, tops. If I'm not there you can even come looking for me. Deal?" Frank eyed him skeptically. "I thought this was supposed to be a relationship of mutual trust, Longbottom. It'll be worth it, I promise."

Frank sighed.

"Okay, fine. Ten minutes. I will come looking for you, Black—so be sharp."

Sirius nodded. He would be. The younger man watched Frank turn and walk back inside the ballroom, full of resolve.

Well, _he_ had resolve, too—just of a different kind.

Dumbledore had wanted him for this mission—and what was he known for if not free thinking, creativity—being willing to take the risks to do what needed to be done? That was what was required here. They couldn't let all this be for nothing.

Sirius had an idea—if he pulled it off and managed to get the information, Frank would have no cause to complain.

And if Longbottom _did_ , well—better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

He was not _quite_ ready to fold.

* * *

 **Next chapter will be the finale of the party sequence and part 1. I felt a little bad leaving it here, but the chapter would have been 25k words, so...**


	5. Chapter 5

_"_ There you go, Sirius _, Harry thought, dully._ Nothing rash. Kept my nose clean. _Exactly the opposite_ of what you'd have done."

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER FIVE**

* * *

The card game was to take place in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, off the main corridor and around the corner from the ballroom. Luckily, like most posh git families with huge mansions, the Malfoys had large ornamental vases and suits of armor cluttering up their hall, so it was easy for Sirius to plant himself behind one such art installation—in this case, a statue of Armand Malfoy the First—and wait for the men to start filing into the room. When they did, it would be very easy to slip in with the rest. He could always play it off to Frank like he got strong-armed by Abraxas and couldn't see a way of refusing without blowing his cover—but hopefully Longbottom and Moody would be so pleased by the results they wouldn't bother to question how he'd achieved them.

There were quite a few guests spilling out from the ballroom, now—it being the part of the evening where women and the more retiring of the family party were likely to wish to go home. The reedy, imperious voice of an elderly woman carried over the hushed murmuring of the other exiting party-goers—and as soon as Sirius recognized it, he pressed himself against the wall, instinctively.

"We're retiring _far_ too early, Pollux."

The statue's arm was positioned jauntily, and so Sirius was able to clearly see her through the gap between Armand's sleeve and hip. Adorned in a full-length black lace gown, white curls pinned back in an old-fashioned chignon, and leaning heavily on the arm of her husband of fifty-seven years, was Sirius's one living grandmother—Irma Crabbe Black, looking as ill-tempered as her maiden name suggested.

"Honestly, woman," Pollux Black groused back at her. "If we didn't leave now, you'd be complaining tomorrow you didn't get enough sleep. _Nothing_ satisfies you."

His mother's father was on the stockier side, as far as Black men went—but he had the same dark hair (now graying) and cold gray eyes as the rest, and right now Sirius could see—and hear in his voice—that he was profoundly fed up with his wife. This was nothing new, as his maternal grandparents were believed to have been having the same, continuous argument since 1956.

Sirius rolled his eyes. Some things never changed. At least he'd managed to avoid interacting with _them._

"Not being snitted at by my husband would be a good start!" Sirius's grandmother squawked.

"No, it wouldn't," his grandfather replied, irritably. "You'd say I was ignoring you, then."

Irma—or as Sirius and Regulus had always known her, _Granny—_ sniffed loudly—but the sound of hurried footsteps that bespoke a person desiring to go undetected spared Grandfather her from the tart reply

"That isn't—Rodolphus Lestrange—is that you?" Irma exclaimed, loudly. "Come here and say hello, young man! I didn't even know you were here—did you know Roddy was here, Pollux?"

Sirius leaned over to get a better look. Their grandson by marriage shuffled over, looking annoyed that he had been spotted by his wife's high-strung grandparents. He muttered something in such a low voice Sirius couldn't catch it.

He narrowed his eyes in on Lestrange's face. Frank was right—there were dark circles there. He did look like he'd been traveling, and he was gaunter than usual, as if he hadn't been sleeping well.

"Where's Bellatrix, then?"

"She's—indisposed."

The bells of the hallway clock struck eleven.

"The _time_ , Irma—we have to be off, remember?" Pollux stuck out his hand and very quickly grasped his granddaughter's husband's. "Don't be a stranger, Rodolphus. It's been an _age_ since you and Bella visited."

One muted apology later, and Lestrange had managed to shake them off with a promise to visit as soon as he and his wife were able. Sirius watched him slip inside the drawing room, and the two elderly Blacks shuffled down the hall, past the long line of Malfoy family portraits and out of sight.

Sirius waited until he heard the distant noise of the front door shutting again before he stepped out from behind the statue.

In two seconds he had crossed the hall. He placed his hand on the gold doorknob just as the last stroke of the clock. Just in time—

 _In time…time…_ time _._

 _Shit._

In his urgency to get into the game as quickly as possible, he'd nearly forgotten—the potion! It had to be close to when he needed to take it—or close enough. He released his hand from the knob and reached into his front pocket to pull out the silver hip-flask full of the disgusting, gelatinous liquid.

But his pocket was empty.

Something gripped Sirius's chest and held it tightly, making it difficult for him to breathe. He knew at once _intellectually_ that it wasn't there, that no amount of groping about would make the flask full of Polyjuice potion materialize (as if—ha!— _by magic_ ), but that didn't stop him from trying. Surely it was just—somehow—it _had_ to be—

He began searching the other pockets in his robes, concern turning to alarm turning to _blind panic_ with the speed of a deranged Thestral.

He peered around the hallway—there was no sign of Frank yet, he must've still been in the ballroom, giving their excuses to Abraxas Malfoy and the rest. He spotted an ajar room two doors down and rushed inside.

It looked as though it might be Abraxas's private study, or one of them—the room was dominated by a handsome oak desk next to a stone fireplace.

He started to empty his pockets onto the desk—the pack of cigarettes followed his broken watch, clattering onto the wooden surface—this was bad. He had lost track of time—could literally change back at any second if he didn't take another draught of potion, and he had set his meeting place with Frank in a completely exposed area of the house. Where could it _be_? Had he really been so idiotic as to carelessly leave the _one thing he needed_ on a table or chair—no, he hadn't set it down, he'd known better than to let go of it when he had it out. Sirius closed his eyes and retraced his steps that evening, trying to recall his last clear memory of having the flask out.

He had taken some of the potion when he was in the corner with the girl, he had toasted her—

That girl…when he had kissed her hand, she must've—she'd _palmed_ it out of his pocket. He swore under his breath. Colette Battancourt had pilfered it from him, the bloody minx! _She_ must be the one who had it. The girl had probably expected him to notice its absence much sooner and come back for it—

Absorbed in his own abject stupidity, he failed to hear the sound of light footsteps entering the room—but his head jerked up at the soft click of the study door being shut.

"Looking for this?"

At _that_ voice, Sirius's heart froze.

He opened his eyes and turned around slowly.

Orion Black was standing directly in front of the door, and in his left hand, held up at eye-level, clearly visible, the object Sirius needed most: the silver flask.

His father took a single step into the room. That was all it took for Sirius to shrink back against the desk.

"You should take more care with your possessions," Orion said, his voice impossibly calm and smooth, careless tossing the object up into the air. "This seems…rather important."

Without even thinking, Sirius drew his wand. Mr. Black raised both eyebrows, but he remained calm, eyes fixed on his prey.

"It is." He could tell by the shrewd and calculating look on his father's face that there was no reason for him to fake a foreign accent. Orion knew the contents of that flask—he understood half of this situation, and Sirius had no desire for him to learn the rest. "And it's in your best interest to just hand it back, walk out the door and pretend this conversation never happened."

This would have been a stupid thing to say to almost anyone, but when he caught sight of his father's scornful expression, he realized just how idiotic it had been to say it now.

Mr. Black laughed—a pitiless, dry chuckle, and in a flash his own wand was out and pointed squarely at Sirius's face.

"You're as brazen as you are stupid," He lowered the flask and watched the imposter's eyes dart down to it. "And _desperate_. Now drop your wand."

"This isn't what you—"

" _Drop it_."

It was a voice that he knew well, and it brooked no argument; Sirius opened his hand and the oak, square-handled wand—not his own—clattered to the parquet floor. Mr. Black stepped forward, glanced down, and after a single, derisive look kicked it across the room. It rolled behind a bookcase in the corner.

He looked back up at Sirius.

"Now. I am a civilized man. I have no desire to create a scene, upset the _ladies_." He lifted his wand up elegantly—sharp eyes still fixed on the stranger. "Our host is in the drawing room—with the other gentlemen. Why don't we join them, and we can…discuss this further?"

Orion pointed his wand toward the door, indicating that the other man should walk through it. The Nordic wizard made no move to do so.

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"Would you rather be _stunned_ and have your carcass dragged into the drawing room?"

"No, I wouldn't fancy that much, either," Sirius said, flatly. His father's face froze in a look of shock. "What I _would_ fancy is you giving me back that flask, but as it's going to take this potion wearing off for you to see _reason_ , I'm content to wait it out."

At this profoundly unwise cheek, Orion Black stepped forward, pushing the man against the front of the desk, wand inches from his face.

"Why you impudent _cur_ ," he spat, furiously. "Don't you know who I am? Men have been killed for daring to say less impertinent drivel to a Black!"

At this, his son's own temper snapped, and red in the face, Sirius burst out, furiously:

"Then by all means, kill me, please— _anything_ to get out of another lecture on what happens to _they that dare_ insult the Black family name. I've only heard it from you about a _thousand_ times."

The sarcastic verbal expulsion was no sooner out of his lips than he would have paid gold to take them back—but it was too late. The damage was done.

Mr. Black slowly lowered his wand. He stared at Nicolaus Svensson—pale, gaping maw open still, though the sheepish expression was otherwise uncannily recognizable—and a look of profound revelation came over Orion's face.

His eyes narrowed into slits.

"To _whom_ am I speaking?"

It came out barely more than a whisper, and every syllable burned with a quiet fury.

Sirius looked up into those fathomless gray eyes and gulped.

"Take a wild guess," he replied, in a minuscule voice.

"I have an _inkling_ ," Mr. Black said, voice so tightly wound he sounded like a Cuckoo clock whose strings were about to burst. "I want to hear you _say it._ "

Sirius opened his mouth—but his body had decided, in that moment, to answer the question all on its own.

He raised a hand to the top of his head just as the blond, nappy hair turned straight and grew. A strand of black fringe fell into the eyes he was sure were changing back to their natural gray, just as his stubby nose was lengthening into its usual aquiline shape. He was shrinking in height, his dress robes grew loose in the shoulders, and the fringed ends now trailed around the floor past his shoes.

In less than thirty seconds he was himself again.

Mr. Black stared down at his eldest son—once again, half an inch shorter than his father—in stunned, angry disbelief.

"I did _tell_ you you were going to want to wait."

"Be _quiet_ ," Orion hissed, venomously, gesturing to the swivel chair behind the desk. "And go _sit down_. _Now_."

Remembering how unpleasant being unarmed had been in their last one-on-one 'chat', Sirius made a move towards the corner where Orion had kicked the wand—but one glowering look from his father relieved him of the notion _that_ was a good idea, and so he instead circled behind the desk and plopped down in the oak chair.

From this spot Sirius watched Mr. Black pace up and down, in a state of profound agitation. Occasionally he glanced over at his son, and every time he did the middle-aged wizard quickly darted his eyes away, as if the very act of looking at the boy caused him physical pain.

It took about thirty seconds of this for Sirius to grow impatient. He cleared his throat, and Orion stopped his pacing and turned very slowly to look at him, his expression masked and stony.

"Listen, I know what you're probably thinking—"

"—You don't have the _faintest idea_ what I'm thinking," his father snapped, icily. "And I don't recall giving you permission to _speak_."

"Look, we really don't have time for this right now." Sirius swiveled his head towards the door. "They're going to come looking for you—or me. Any second someone might come bursting through that door—"

"By the time I'm done with you, you'll be _wishing_ for that!"

Orion leaned over the desk, his expression more livid than his son had ever seen it. Sirius wanted very desperately to scoot the chair back, but his feet didn't seem to be working—or maybe it was the fact that his extra-long robes were caught in the swivel chair, trapping him in place.

"This is a rather extraordinary situation we find ourselves in." Sirius said nothing, still frozen. "From your attitude the past week, _I_ was under the impression that you were rather looking forward to a day free from our presence. I need hardly add that feeling on _my_ part was mutual."

Orion's son felt a stirring of defiance, and he glared back.

Mr. Black placed both hands palms-down on the table, boxing his son in.

"And yet—here we are." He gestured around the room. "Would you care to explain yourself?"

"No, I wouldn't."

The response had been automatic. He had never been able to resist the urge to respond to Orion's sarcasm in kind, and at the lethal glare this cheeky answer had elicited, Sirius's nerves faltered and he shrank back a little.

"' _You wouldn't'?_ " Mr. Black repeated, voice dangerously soft. "You don't think I'm entitled to some explanation for this?"

Sirius struggled to recall what the Order protocol was when being interrogated by enemy combatants. Nobody had ever explained what you were supposed to do when they were also your father, and he looked like he was about to strangle the life out of you.

"I think you believe you're entitled to a _lot_ of things, an explanation for why I'm here being one of them, but as it stands—" He gulped again. "I'm…not at liberty to say."

Orion's face froze in an utterly unreadable expression.

Considering the urgency of the moment, Sirius could not seem to make his tongue work. He stared blankly up at his father, then around the room, as if the walls of Abraxas Malfoy's study would provide him with some avenue for softening up the enraged wizard in front of him.

No such solution materialized.

The Black patriarch's eyes bored into his for a long moment.

"'Not at liberty to say'?" Orion repeated, silkily, and he leaned his face closer to his son's. "You know what I think? _I_ think that I'm your father, and you're at 'liberty to say' whatever I _damn well please_." Sirius winced and gripped the edges of the chair. "And right now what _damn well_ pleases me is to learn how it is that I find my son sneaking about at his own grandfather's birthday party masquerading as some damned _Norwegian_!"

The words hung in the air, and the full impact of the ridiculousness of that sentence coming out of Orion's mouth seemed to hit Sirius in waves.

"You know, when you describe it like _that_ ," Sirius said, in a strangled voice. "It…really _does_ seem absurd, but let me assure you that there is a perfectly _reasonable_ explanation for why I'm—"

"—'Perfectly reasonable explanation'?" Mr. Black cut over his son, sharply. "In what _universe do you dwell_ that you think there's an acceptable excuse for subterfuge, gatecrashing and deceitfully misrepresenting yourself to your own _relations_?"

"Well, if you calm down and just let me—"

"I'll _calm down_ when I damn well feel up to it, boy, and not a moment before—" Orion snarled over him. "Now tell me, once and for all: what the devil do you mean by it, pulling a stunt like this?"

"What do you think, Dad, that I'm here for the _fun_ of it?" Sirius exclaimed, exasperated. "I'm working—this is an undercover mission!"

Orion straightened up and gaped at his son.

"What does _that_ mean, an 'undercover mission'?" he repeated, incredulous in the extreme. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm on a _mission_ , you know—for the…the Order of the Phoenix."

At the mention of the illicit secret society that his elder son belonged to, Orion's expression darkened even further.

"That old fool sent you." His son nodded. Mr. Black's eyes narrowed. "To do _what_?"

Sirius's eyes darted from the flask back up to his father's face.

"It's a—it's a highly classified…intelligence-gathering operation," Sirius said, hoping that vagaries of euphemistic language would hide the substance of the mission.

His father wasn't fooled for a second.

"Spying, in other words," Mr. Black said, his tone of voice smooth and pleasant—eyes still hard as diamonds. He reminded his son of a cobra, luring the mouse into a false sense of security right before it strikes. "My son is a _spy_ , now."

"I'm guessing from your tone of voice that you don't consider 'spy' to be an appropriate career choice for _your_ son," Sirius replied, sarcastically—the entirely wrong tact to take.

"How astute!" Orion shot back, furious. "You don't miss a trick, do you?"

Sirius flinched and broke eye contact with his father. He stared at the side of one of Abraxas's book shelves, trying to ignore the unpleasant stabbing sensation of Orion's piercing stare.

"Is _this_ how you've been occupying yourself the past three years? Tell me, do you _frequently_ sneak into social events disguised as wealthy foreigners?"

It took every once of his son's self-control to keep him from rolling his eyes.

"Of course not," Sirius replied, tersely. He was fast losing patience—he did not have time for this. "This is a—a highly unusual situation."

Orion snorted.

"The master of understatement, as always." He folded his hands behind his back and studied the young man sitting behind the desk, apparently in control of his emotions once more. "So this is what you've sunk to—sneaking about, peering through key-holes and spying for Dumbledore. On your own family, no less!"

"I am not spying on _the family_ ," Sirius said, pushing the chair up roughly and getting to his feet. "I had no idea that the _family_ was even going to _be_ here. Believe it or not, this has nothing to with you _or_ the family."

"Nothing to do with—this is your _grandfather's birthday party!_ "

"It wasn't supposed to be!" Sirius exclaimed, indignantly. "You were all supposed to be in Suffolk tonight! What are you even _doing_ here, Dad?"

"You're asking _me_ to account for _my_ presence?" Orion was staring at his son in utter disbelief— the impudence and nerve of him was astounding. "I am an invited guest in this house—which is far more than _you_ can boast of. Now _sit back down_!"

Sirius collapsed back in the chair with an angry huff. His father watched him like a hawk, eyes glittering, hand still clutching the silver flask so tightly his knuckles were white. His wand was still trained on his son.

"Now, once for all—without dickering about or dancing around it—" The words were so cutting Sirius recoiled. "—Tell me the real reason you're here. I want all of it, the truth, not another one of your _tall tales_."

He glared up at his father for a long moment—then glanced at the carriage clock behind him. Time was ticking away, and he knew enough of the man in front of him to realize that he could tell as many lies as he wanted—Orion would not settle for anything less than the real story.

He let out a long sigh.

"Alright, alright—you want the truth, I'll tell you the truth." He eyed Orion's wand warily. "Just—stop waving that in my face, _please_."

His father lowered his wand a fraction and drummed his fingers on the desk, expectantly. Sirius tried to steady his nerves, and when he managed to speak, his voice was calm—though the words came out quickly.

"There are a—pair of Death Eaters here tonight, in the manor. They've just arrived from way up north—" Sirius didn't notice the flicker of understanding that crossed his father's face. "—Where they've been with their master for the last few weeks, recruiting from Durmstrang, we think—and _supposedly_ he gave one of them important information they are going to pass to some other Death Eater, in code, during that card game in the drawing room."

There was a short silence following his admission. Sirius watched his father absorb the information—but he could not have ventured a guess at what he was really thinking. The expression on Orion's face was his most guarded—the perfect mask.

"This is the reason you've come?" Mr. Black asked, his voice calm and unreadable. "To intercept some kind of secret message from the Dark Lord, being passed by one of his followers during a _game of cards_?"

His father had a certain tone of voice that he employed to make even the most mundane or ordinary behavior seem preposterous—he had it on full-blast now. Sirius clenched his teeth.

"Yeah—more or less."

Orion let out a snort of derisive laughter.

"That is the biggest crock of nonsense I think I've ever heard!" he sneered, coldly. " _Secret codes_ —it's like a some intrigue from a melodrama on the wireless."

"I'm not disagreeing with you, but the fact is _he_ doesn't trust any of them enough to let them speak freely to one another." Sirius shifted anxiously in his seat, staring at the ticking clock, then back at his father, expression serious again. "Now you understand _why_ I'm here, and why I need that flask back."

Orion goggled at his son, who right now looked about ready to spring from the chair and vault to the door.

"Oh, I apologize—is this _boring_ you?" Mr. Black said, with heavy sarcasm. "Is 'debriefing' your father on your 'mission' a _tedious task_?"

Sirius let out another calming breath and forced himself to be—as polite as he felt he was humanly able, given the pressure of the moment.

"Look, Dad—I understand and appreciate that you're angry, you're—entitled to that, this is very awkward, obviously—but I _honestly_ do not have time to get chewed out by you right now. Can we just postpone the lecture until tomorrow? You can _scream_ at me at your leisure in the morning, I promise you—but it'll all be a waste if I don't get out of here soon."

Then, feeling the urgency of the moment and the need to speed the process of getting out of here along, Sirius stood up and—in an act of supreme nerve—actually held out his hand. He looked just as brashly confident as the little boy who had once stuck out his hand and expected a toffee to be pulled from his father's inner pocket and deposited there on his command.

Orion looked down at the hand, then up at his son's face, face cooly blank again.

"What is it you believe is about to happen?" he asked, calmly, holding up the silver flask in his left hand. "Do you think you're getting this _back_?"

His son let out an undignified snort.

"Oh, come _on_. Are we _really_ doing this right now?" Mr. Black's left hand dropped to his side. "You can _posture_ all you like, but there's only one door to this room, and it's either Svensson or your blood-traitor son who's walking out of it. _You_ don't want the latter any more than _I_ do." Sirius leaned over the desk and opened his palm ever wider. "You're going to hand the Polyjuice Potion over to me, sooner or later—I'd rather it was sooner, that's all. It's not like you have a choice."

Orion considered this point with his characteristic placidity. The ticking of the clock was all his son could focus on—it was maddening.

Sirius had thought couching the problem in eminently sensible terms would help speed the process of his father seeing reason along, but it seemed to have temporarily slowed him down. He tried not to let his impatience show—Orion was measured, he always thought carefully about every decision, and though he might not be happy about this, his elder son was confident that he would eventually see what must be obvious to any rational person.

"No choice, eh?" Mr. Black said at last, weighing the silver object in his left hand deliberatively. "That's what you think?"

Orion lifted his arm, and for one glorious moment his son believed that his powers of cool reasoning had salvaged this situation.

It was then Sirius looked into his face—and found his father's eyes were narrowed with such cold fury that he could not have miscalculated more.

He realized what was going to happen a second before it did.

Orion Black reared back his arm and hurled the flask into the stone fireplace with such strength that the top shattered. Sirius gaped in transfixed horror as the globs of gelatinous liquid oozed out of the bent silver into the ashes in the grate. He vaulted over the desk, pushing past the older man—and watched the rest of the Polyjuice Potion congeal into the ashes, rendering it contaminated and useless.

Shaking with shock, Sirius turned around. Placid as ever, and eyes still fixed on his son, Mr. Black raised his wand towards the fireplace and vanished the remains.

"Well, I trust I've disabused you of _that_ notion."

Sirius goggled at his father.

"Are you out of your _fucking_ mind?"

Mr. Black narrowed his eyes.

"That question," Orion replied, in his most frigid voice. "Would be better served directed at _yourself_."

"How—how can you be so _calm_?" Sirius demanded, no longer bothering to keep his voice down. His father remained as impassive as ever, and as usual this served to further agitate his distraught son. "You just _chucked_ my only means of escape into the—what am I supposed to do now? How the _hell_ am I supposed to even get out of here?"

Mr. Black was utterly unmoved by his son's distress. Sirius might've asked him to help with a crossword clue, for all the concern he showed at having that question half-shouted at him.

"Oh, that shouldn't be too hard," he remarked, blandly, tilting his head. "I believe you have another, _highly effective_ way of concealing your identity, after all."

His son went pale—and then his father waved his wand, and the object that he conjured left no doubt as to the meaning of his words.

It was a collar and _lead_.

"No." Sirius raised his eyes to his father's face and glared. "Not happening. No way in hell."

"I wasn't aware you had any other options available to you," Mr. Black remarked, with an idle shrug.

His son was practically vibrating from the force of his anger.

"I did—I did until about five seconds ago!" He hissed, staring back down at the profoundly humiliating object, then back up at Orion. The older man watched him patiently. "I—I'll transform into a dog, but I am not letting you put a _lead_ on me!"

Mr. Black's smile was cold and pitiless.

"Since I cannot trust you to do as I _say_ , I need a guarantee of your cooperation," Sirius's father sneered, holding up the leash. "This will do nicely. It has the added benefit of lending the unfortunate task _authenticity._ If anyone should ask, I can simply tell them I'm removing an unwanted _whelp_ from the house." His eyes glittered with contempt. "It's not even a lie."

Sirius took a step away from the offending object—as if he thought Orion had conjured it to beat him. He honestly would have preferred that to what his father had in mind.

"That thing is humiliating, and I am not wearing it!" Sirius hissed. "Merlin, if you felt _this_ strongly about me leaving, why didn't you just say so from the beginning?"

Mr. Black snapped the lead against the wooden desk—his son jumped to attention.

"Because I didn't think it needed to be said!" Orion hissed, and the force of his anger made Sirius visibly wince. "Has three years away dulled your wits so, that you thought I would let you waltz out of here and continue with this _inane_ scheme of yours? Does that seem likely to you, Sirius—does it sound like something _your father_ would do?"

Sirius fingers curled into fists, and he raised them in a defensive posture.

"I knew you wouldn't be _thrilled_ about it, but I thought if you knew the mission was _important_ , you'd—I don't know, relent, or something!" his son replied, through gritted teeth. It really did sound imbecilic when said out loud. "God, what a mistake _that_ was."

"A colossal mistake—and it's going to cost you dearly." He advanced on his son, leash in hand. Sirius eyed it with loathing and let out an actual growl in the back of his throat. "Tonight the price will be your dignity."

He stared up into his father's face—the one that he knew in thirty years would be his own—and felt a surge of repulsion at the sight of it. In moments like this the resemblance between them was useful: it was easy for him to project everything he hated about himself onto Orion, and Sirius's secret self-loathing was far less complicated than his real feelings for the implacable man standing before him.

Orion was in his way in every sense of the phrase.

His father's dark eyebrows were drawn up, his mouth a fixed, unyielding line—supremely arrogant in every respect. He patiently waited for for his son to obey the order he hadn't even bothered to issue.

Orion's son glowered at him. He looked just like he had up on the fire escape—unflappable, shrewd cunning wrapped in a paper-thin veneer of respectability. In that moment Sirius forgot about the mission, forgot why he was angry, why was even here—all he wanted in this moment was to shatter his father's ironclad self-possession, make Orion lose control, feel as powerless as _he_ felt. He wanted, above all, to royally piss him off.

And he knew how.

"You really _are_ in a foul mood," he said, cooly matching his father's gaze. "Arcturus must've reamed you out something fierce, to get you in this state."

Mr. Black froze.

" _What_ did you just say to me?" he asked, hardly more than a whisper.

Adrenaline and a kind of blind self-destruction had taken over. Sirius had lit the match, now he was dangling it over the straw roof.

"I said _your father_ , Black the Eldest…the man of the hour, the 'birthday boy'—only I gather he's not too pleased with you at the moment." A black cloud seemed to pass over Orion's face, and his son continued, recklessly. "Doesn't buy your fibs about Regulus being in France. All this talk of getting caught in lies and paying the price for it—must be weighing pretty heavily on your mind."

"You should be very careful—" Mr. Black hissed. "—Before speaking of things about which you _know nothing_."

"Oh, I know more than you'd think."

"You are treading on dangerous ground."

He knew it. It was deliberate, and Orion might've seen that it was, except he was already so angry—Arcturus could push his buttons like no other—that he didn't see the provocation for what it was. Judging from how incensed his father was, Sirius guessed he was far closer to the mark than he'd even realized.

"Maybe. Doesn't make it untrue, does it?" He shrugged. "Your sister and wife were talking about it right in front of me!"

Sirius watched his father's fist curl around his wand.

 _That's right, Dad—just take a swing—please, I beg you, just lose it for once in your life—_

"Oh, were they?" Mr. Black advanced another step, and though his voice was still calm, his face was contorted with barely-suppressed rage.

"Yeah, they were. Aunt Lucretia even said he gave you a _drubbing_." The older man's eyes flashed. "Speaking of humiliation."

Orion raised his right hand—his son didn't even flinch. This was working better than he'd even predicted.

 _Do it. Come on, you sanctimonious, uptight son-of-a—_

Mr. Black tossed the lead onto the desk.

"—I really should have _beaten_ the insolence out of you when you were a child."

Sirius glanced from the wand-tip up to his father's face and smirked.

"It's not too late."

Time seemed to slow down in that moment—the hand began to move, but whether it was being raised or lowered, whether he had successfully pushed Orion over the edge, he would never know, because at that exact moment—a sharp rap on the door brought father and son crashing back to reality.

It was a confident knock, a warning rather than a request for permission to enter. Both men swore in unison—Orion hissed an order, but Sirius didn't need to be told what to do, his survival instincts had kicked in quite on their own.

The door to Abraxas's study swung open with another bang.

" _There_ you are."

Mrs. Black strode briskly into the room stopped dead at the extraordinarily odd sight before her: her husband, wand raised in the air, staring at her, utterly dumbfounded—and at his feet, a gigantic black dog wearing an identical expression.

"Walburga—what—what are you doing here?"

She narrowed her eyes at her husband—he was so flustered, his ears were actually turning red.

"Looking for _you_ , of course. What on earth are you _doing_ in here?" Her eyes trailed down to the animal on the floor next to him—who, at her scrutiny, immediately went rigid. "And what is _that_?"

Orion jerked his head awkwardly and stared down at the dog—it looked up and let out a low whine—then back at his wife.

"It's a—stray," he answered her, tersely. "Got into the house somehow. I was about to get _rid_ of it."

"A stray?" she repeated, raising one eyebrow at her husband, sardonically. "Rather handsome creature for a _stray_."

"You think it's handsome?" Mr. Black said, incredulously. "It's a mangy beast, in my opinion."

She looked back down at the dog. For some reason the animal was very nervous at being scrutinized—though it remained in place, it didn't quite seem to want to meet her gaze.

"He seems tame to _me_." She looked back up at Orion. "Are you sure it's not the Malfoys'?"

"Positive," he said, in a clipped voice. "Abraxas only keeps Irish wolfhounds—and he never lets them in the house. _That_ is an unwanted pest."

Walburga stepped closer to the dog, and to her husband and son's great surprise, bent her knees—gracefully, it was true, she could have curtsied to a queen if she ever met one—and patted him on the head. At first the creature flinched at her touch, but after a few brisk pats it lost its odd skittishness and actually leaned into her hand.

For some reason her husband seemed extremely annoyed by this.

"Do _not_ pet it, Walburga—" Mr. Black ordered her, irritably. "It could be rabid—or have _fleas_."

The animal whined again and turned its head toward her husband—Orion only had to glare at it and the creature immediately flattened its ears.

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I doubt that very much." He scratched him behind the ears, and the dog very cautiously wagged his tail. She looked up at Orion, a small smile on her face. "He looks like one of the dogs my grandfather used to breed—like one of the Black dogs."

"Of course it's a black dog—"

"No Orion, I mean like one of the Black _hounds_. You remember." Both her husband and son blinked up at her, confused. She let out an impatient noise. "My grandfather bred them. He wanted to create a Black breed—a hunter for the family."

"I'd forgotten that," Orion said, slowly, and he considered the dog at his feet, eyes narrowed. The dog gave him a little glower before turning its head back to Mrs. Black, hopefully. "I seem to recall he wasn't very successful in his ventures."

"No—everyone said they were handsome but useless as hounds—better sheepherders, and what use had the family for that? So he gave it up. He was fond of them, though." She stroked under its chin and then stepped back to gaze at it critically. "This fellow looks just like my grandfather's favorite, Magpie. It's uncanny."

Orion snorted.

"Sounds like a womanish fancy," he scoffed, glowering at the animal. "If you ask _me_ , that creature is a first-class mongrel."

The creature in question let out an affronted growl and stood up on all fours. He made a move to scamper towards the door, but Mr. Black was too quick—he grabbed the animal by the scuff of his neck and dragged him back. She noticed a collar and lead had been thrown carelessly on the desk, her husband picked them both up and snapped them onto its neck. The creature put up a fight, trying to squirm away—perhaps it _was_ a wild stray, it certainly didn't like the collar one bit—and then he waved his wand, and in another flash Orion had summoned a muzzle for it.

"Is that really necessary?" she asked, watching him practically shove the dog's nose into the leather harness. His head kept slipping out, but Orion was nothing if not determined, and he got it on at last and snapped it in place, triumphant.

"It might _bite_ me, and I'm not taking any chances," he said, curtly, then he stood up again and addressed his wife with no less curtness. "I suppose you came to find me for some reason _besides_ defending this beast's honor?"

Walburga fixed her husband with a chilly stare.

"Your father sent me to find you, of course." She smoothed the skirts of her gown, and sniffed haughtily. "He says you're to attend him in the drawing room."

Mr. Black frowned and stared at her—as did the dog, whose intelligent gray eyes were still visible through the straps of its muzzle.

"What for? They're playing for stakes in there. He knows I don't gamble."

"You do tonight, apparently." She tilted her head and shrugged—these wholly masculine concerns were of no interest to her. "He needs you to play. I gather some wizards dropped out of the game and they're a man short."

"Which wizards?"

"Those foreigners, of course." Orion's eyes widened. "That Klöcker—the translator for the rich one, the Norwegian—Abraxas told him he couldn't join them in the room if he wasn't playing for his own stakes, and he had the effrontery to tell old Malfoy that if both of them couldn't be there _neither_ of them would come."

Mr. Black's eyes narrowed and flicked down to the creature at his feet. It flinched.

"Is that what Klöcker said—that neither of them were going to play?" She nodded, noticing that the dog had flattened its ears again. Her husband threw it another piercing look. "That's _very_ interesting."

"Is it? I don't see why," she sniffed. "Anyway, that's why he sent me. They haven't started yet and they're all waiting for you."

Her voice had a touch of impatience, but Orion didn't notice—he was absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Where's Klöcker now?" The dog whined again, and he yanked the leash to silence it. "Is he still here?"

"How should I know? He was saying goodbye to your father and the rest, last I saw—I suppose he'll go find his Norwegian clod and they'll both leave."

"Hm." He narrowed his eyes towards the door. "Yes—I suppose he will."

"Good riddance, I say," she continued, passing over his odd interest in the movements of some no-name valet. "I can't imagine how those foreign wizards ended up at your father's birthday party in the first place." She let out a huff of disdain. "Anyway, they're gone, and you're to take their place in the drawing room."

There was a short, awkward pause, broken only by the dog nudging Mr. Black's leg with its still-muzzled snout. He ignored the creature, instead staring intently at his wife.

"No. I'm not going to play," he said, after a moment, and he pushed the animal away. "I—have no interest in cards this evening."

Walburga frowned, faintly surprised.

"What does you having an _interest_ in cards matter to your father?" she asked, with faint disbelief. "He just wants another player."

"I don't give a _damn_ what he wants!"

At this, Mrs. Black laughed—chillingly disdainful, the kind of laugh that spoke to danger.

"Really? You don't?" Her husband's face flushed scarlet. "That's odd—I thought it was the only thing you _did_ give a damn about."

For the second time in the evening, Mr. Black was struck momentarily dumb by an insult from a member of his family. His shoulders went rigid as Walburga fixed him with a mulish look—in that moment, the resemblance between her and her elder son was uncanny.

On the floor at his feet, the dog had gone similarly stiff.

"I have no interest in arguing with you, madam," Orion said, coldly. "Not here. Now go out into the hall and tell them I'll be along in a minute, and then we will take our _leave_ of this god-forsaken event."

"Are you trying to get rid of me, Orion Black?"

She made no move towards the door—and standing in front of it, arms crossed, slightly forbidding, her husband had no way of getting past her.

"No, I am not trying to—" He glanced back at the dog—still on the leash, but now looking like he wanted to get out of the room for very different reasons. "I have something I need to do, and it's very important—"

"— _You_ were the one who practically dragged me out of the hall an hour ago!" she interrupted him. "Now you can't wait to see the back of me. What are you trying to hide?"

Exasperated, he tried to step around her to get to the door—but she blocked him. At this, the man—already on his last nerve from the antics of Walburga's son—lost his temper again.

"Nothing! For once in your life, woman, can you just do as I ask you without questioning it?" Mr. Black hissed. "Do you know what it's like to have a wife who _never_ obeys?"

"I imagine it's like having a husband who won't stand up to his own _father_."

A heavy silence followed this statement. Even the dog appeared to have stopped breathing.

Mr. Black's expression had turned icy.

"…I assume from the tenor of that comment, and your unseemly displays of temper," Orion said, in a glacial voice. "That you have discovered your scheme to get out of hosting Christmas Eve at our home is for naught, and for some _irrational_ reason you blame me."

Mrs. Black gripped her wand tightly—her hair had fallen out, but she did not seem to care much. She stepped forward and jabbed him in the chest.

"It's your fault, of _course_ I blame you!" she shot back, angrily. "You knew it was important to me, but you caved to your father, like you always do."

"What choice did I have, Walburga?" he retorted, furious—exerting every effort to keep his voice down. "What was I supposed to do, tell him the _truth_ —that you don't want to host that dratted party because you'd rather be with your misbegotten sons?"

She threw him a scornful look.

"If my sons _are_ misbegotten, whose fault is it?"

His face was now beet red, and he had let go of the lead—but he had ceased to mark the dog, who at this moment wanted very much to crawl under the desk, but was afraid of being noticed by either of his parents during this colossal row.

Mr. Black took a few deep breaths, attempting to regain control over himself.

"You will get over this new disappointment, madam, I assure you," he said, in a flat and emotionless voice. "And you'll have all of Christmas Day with your children—though _why_ you should be so eager for their company, I can scarcely imagine." He folded his arms behind his back. "I've never met a bigger pair of fools in my life."

His sarcasm was blistering, and it had the desired impact of angering her even more.

"Well, they _do_ say sons take after their father."

Husband and wife stared at each other for a long moment—hurtful, proud words filling up the space between them, and the chasm seemed to widen with each passing second. Abruptly Mrs. Black broke eye contact with him and turned on her heel, marching to the door.

"I am going home and going to bed," she informed him, coldly, turning back around. "As you will _undoubtedly_ be playing cards late, I ask that you sleep in your dressing room. I do not want to be disturbed in the middle of the night."

"As you wish."

"Then I'll bid you goodnight." Scorn dripped from every word. "Give Arcturus my regards."

She glided out of the study, slamming the heavy door shut behind her.

Mr. Black stared at the door, wishing very dearly in that moment he had another object in his hand that he could hurl into the fireplace. Then he slowly turned around.

The dog was nowhere to be found—the only sign of him being the end of the leash, which poked out from underneath Abraxas's desk.

 _So he thought he could hide, did he?_

Orion crossed the floor swiftly and snatched the end of the lead up.

"If you're not out here in two seconds I'll _drag_ you out."

A low whimper emanated from under the desk, and then a moment later, Sirius slinked into view, Still wearing the muzzle, ears flattened, body slouched as low to the ground as it was possible for a massive dog to be. Mr. Black did not think he had ever seen a more pathetic creature.

He crossed his arms and glowered down at it. The dog stared glumly at the floor.

"Remember what I told you?" Orion asked him, snidely. "About how it can always get worse?"

The dog slowly raised his head from the floor. Sirius tried to bark—but not being able to open his mouth, it came out as a rather feeble yip. Mr. Black laughed.

"This suits you, I must say." He watched his son paw at the muzzle furiously. "It won't come off and it's not breakable, so don't even _think_ of trying to transform. I would hate to see you _injure_ yourself."

Sirius lowered his front paws and glowered at his father through the muzzle, letting out a low growl of displeasure.

"I'm afraid I don't speak _mongrel_ ," Mr. Black said, in a mocking voice. "So I don't know what it is you're after. Did you want to go meet your Auror friend, the one you came with? I could bring you to him."

The dog stopped growling at once, and, terror-stricken, shook its head from side-to-side.

"Oh—so you _don't_ want that." He sneered down at him. "What _shall_ we do with you, then?" The dog let out another low whine. "Any ideas? No? It's not like my _clever son_ to be at _such_ a loss."

Sirius snorted and let out another whimper. Orion pulled the lead taut, and his son, still looking miserable, got to his feet.

"Well, in the absence of any brilliant suggestions from _whelps_ in the room," his father said, sarcastically. "I suppose we have no choice."

The pack of cigarettes and broken watch still lay on the desk—Orion gave them a single contemptuous look before vanishing the offending objects. He picked up the bent flask from the ashes in the fireplace, and then marched to the corner of the room and snatched up Svensson's wand.

The hall was empty when Mr. Black opened the door, and so his son was spared the humiliation of any additional witnesses to the sight of him muzzled and being literally lead by the nose. The second his father had put the horrifying object on him—in front of his mother, no less!—his instinct had been to fight it with all the force of will he possessed. Sirius had wanted to make Orion drag him down the hallway—if he was going to be treated like a stray dog, he'd sure as hell act like one—but the thought of anyone else seeing him like this was even more unbearable than submitting to it, and Mr. Black was pleasantly surprised to find his charge so complacent, following closely at his heels.

Of course, at this point, what choice did the boy have?

By the time they made it to the Malfoy family library the room was dark, the fire that Orion had been staring into an hour before reduced to nothing more than smoldering embers in the grate. The wizard and his unfortunate offspring crossed together to the French doors, Sirius practically straining against the leash in his eagerness to get away.

Sirius raised a paw to open the door—and his father put a hand on the latch.

"Wait a moment." Sirius looked up at his father and gave him a pleading, doleful look. "I'd have thought you'd want that _thing_ off before you left. Don't you?"

The black dog slowly nodded, looking utterly forlorn. His father felt an instant stab of pity at the sight, and then, just as quickly, annoyance at himself for feeling it.

Mercy was the _last_ thing his son deserved.

Of course—he wouldn't be able to get back to London quickly stuck as a dog, and if the little idiot caught cold and died, all of this effort in getting him safely away would be for nothing, wouldn't it? Mr. Black let out another weary sigh and raised his wand, vanishing the offending muzzle, collar and leash.

Sirius's ears perked, slightly. Orion's eyes hardened again. He was glad for it—it was easier to be furious at him when he didn't look like the most miserable creature on the planet.

"We are not done here, my boy—not by a _mile_ ," he said, voice steely again, and he turned the latch and opened the crystal door. "Expect me to be in touch."

The wintery air night air blew into the library. The dog hesitated, then looked back up at his father.

"Now get out of my sight."

He didn't need telling twice. The black dog vaulted onto the terrace and into the garden. Mr. Black watched him jump through the rose bushes and over hedgerows—he had never seen a dog run that fast. He didn't take his eyes off of Sirius until his son vanished into the fields beyond the garden.

When Orion stepped back into the main hallway, it was no longer empty. Mr. Klöcker stood near the entrance to the ballroom, shoulders relaxed, waiting patiently for _his_ son. Orion watched him for a moment from the shadows, his eyes narrowed with suspicion and dislike.

He cleared his throat loudly, and when he approached, and the Auror turned to him, he was satisfied at the look of perturbation he found.

His contempt must've been obvious.

"If you are waiting for your _associate_ ," Orion said, in his coldest and most imperious voice. "I feel compelled to inform you that he is not coming, sir."

Klöcker fixed his face in an expression of polite puzzlement.

"And why is that?"

"Because I just threw him out on his _ear_."

Mr. Klöcker—Frank Longbottom—was much better at masking his emotions than Mr. Black's son, for he didn't even blink. Orion pulled the wand he'd picked up from the floor out of his robes.

"Please return _this_ —" He thrust it roughly into Frank's hand. "—To its _real_ owner, with my compliments."

Longbottom looked down at the wand in his hand, and recognizing what it was, very quickly put it in his own pocket and looked up again. Orion could see in the man's keen eyes that this Auror was far faster on the uptake than Sirius.

He wouldn't be arguing with the wizard over the wisdom of leaving, that was for sure.

"I'll be sure to do that for you, sir," Frank said, quietly. "Was there…anything else?"

The older man's sneer became even more pronounced.

"Only this," Mr. Black continued, blandly. "You seem cleverer than your _partner_. I assume you were the one in charge of this scheme—well, you might be interested to know that he _completely_ ignored your orders. If I hadn't caught him, he'd be in that drawing room right now— _alone_." Longbottom's jaw tightened. "Of course—you seem to know him, so his insubordination likely doesn't surprise you."

The Auror stared up at him, at a total loss. Orion savored this. By Salazar, it was nice to speak to somebody who didn't always have a smart reply.

"Now I suggest you leave, before I'm forced to call Mr. Malfoy and inform him I have caught a prowler in his home—not that he doesn't already know. I suppose it occurred to you you were expected." The other man nodded, unsurprised. "Tell that _fool_ you report to that he should chose his spies with more care from now on."

Another curt nod.

"I'll convey the message," Longbottom said, cooly—and to the other man's surprise, he actually stuck out his arm. "You aren't what I expected at all, Mr. Black. I guess I…owe you one."

Orion stared down at the proffered hand with contempt—did this scamp think he was actually going to shake it? Apparently his son wasn't the only impudent member of the Order of the Phoenix skulking about this evening.

"You owe me _nothing,_ " the older man informed him, blandly, eyes flicking back to his face. Why was this cur so damn cheerful? "And in all honesty, I hope to never set eyes on you again."

A sarcastic smile flashed across Frank's face, and he lowered his hand and bowed to the older man instead.

"I'll try to make that happen—but no promises." His smile was as grim as Orion's. "In _my_ line of work, I don't always get a choice in whose path I cross."

Before Mr. Black could even begin to formulate a reply to this supremely cheeky remark, Frank Longbottom hurried down the hall and out the front doors of the house, leaving the older man quite alone once more.

Orion stood there, blessedly.

A long line of Malfoy family portraits watched him from above. The sound of music and a few straggling party-goers filtered into the hall—the wives and daughters of the men who were sequestered in the drawing room, no doubt. He stared down the hallway—then back at the front doors of the Manor.

Longbottom had left it open.

He stared at the cracked oak doors. Orion was overcome with an almost irresistible urge to push them open and walk to the lane, leave this dreadful night behind—shove the unpleasant revelations to the back of his mind like a book being shoved behind a shelf—to be examined later, perhaps, but more likely to gather dust and be forgotten—

He took a step forward. He thought of the people back in the hall—he had never left a social event in his life without saying goodbye to his family—the thought of doing something that ill-bred revolted him to his core, but the social graces were at war with his instincts, and his instincts were to get away from this place, from this _choice._

"Where the _hell_ do you think _you're_ going?"

A voice and a sound, the most familiar sound in the world to him—the clacking of an ivory cane on a marble floor.

He turned slowly and found an equally familiar sight: his father, Arcturus, looking bad-tempered and annoyed. Behind him, light spilled out from the drawing room door, left ajar. Abraxas was just visible from the hall, sitting at the circular card table between Augustus Rookwood and his son, Lucius.

Orion felt an unexpected dread in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the room—and at the sight of the people inside of it, men he knew—or thought he knew. His father noticed, and fixed him with one of his patented eagle-eyed stares.

"What on earth is the matter, boy?" Arcturus barked, suspiciously. "You look like you've seen a damned poltergeist."

Orion swallowed, but when he looked back at his father, his expression was smooth and placid again.

"It's nothing, Father," he said, calmly. "I was—just coming to attend to you."

"Hmph. A likely story. Looks to me like you were about to sneak away, like your _damned_ sister." He narrowed his eyes at his son, all shrewd cunning. "Come in the drawing room at once. We need another man playing at the table—everyone is waiting for you."

"I—"

"I don't want to hear one of your cock-and-bull excuses about not gambling, Orion!" Arcturus snapped. "Salazar knows you can afford to lose the gold, even if you _are_ worthless at cards."

Orion blinked slowly, murmured an apology—naturally, all it garnered was a sneer of contempt—and very slowly he followed Arcturus into the drawing room.

The door closed behind them with a snap, leaving the hall empty once more.

* * *

When Sirius had made it back home—sometime past two in the morning, he guessed, not having a working watch he didn't know for certain—he was surprised to find Lily on the other side of his front door, tired but cheerful, her dark red hair in a plait.

"I came to meet James, and he—seemed off, so I told him to go home and rest," she explained, then she took in his expression, and her own fell. "Oh, darling—are you alright?"

His gloomy expression said more than words, and before he could answer, Mrs. Potter had wrapped her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. Sirius hugged her back—he would never stop being amazed at how much strength God had seen fit to squeeze into one petite redhead.

"So, I'm guessing your mission didn't go—quite as well as you hoped?" Lily asked, in a gentle voice, pulling away. Sirius let her go with extreme reluctance.

"It was an unmitigated disaster," he replied, miserably. "I don't even know if Frank made it out alive."

Lily gave him an encouraging smile and patted him on the arm.

"He did. He sent a message for you." Sirius's face fell. "He says he's alright—and that he knows what happened, and he'll talk to you about it—soon."

He swore loudly.

"What about my brother?"

" _He_ went to bed ages ago—before I even got here." Her face fell at his continued look misery. "Sirius, whatever happened—I'm sure it wasn't—"

"—It _was_ , Lily. Trust me." He ran a hand through his hair and looked around the living room of the apartment. James had left several Quidditch magazines strewn about the floor. Prongs's leavings only served to depress him further—he could've really used the real thing right about now. "Listen, I know this is a big ask—but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind spending the night."

"Of course I don't mind—it's a bit late to go home, anyway." She stared at his back, curiously. "Why d'you need me to?"

He let out a long sigh and turned around.

"Because I'm going to be _summoned,_ " he said, grimly. "I'm going to need to leave the flat—probably sometime in the morning, and I need to make sure someone's here with Reg."

"Summoned? By—"

"—By my father," he said, curtly.

"…Oh."

She saw how tired he looked—and if she was being honest, dreadfully downcast—and decided to spare anymore questions for the night.

"Of course. I'll stay as long as you need me to."

It happened a half-hour later, just past three o'clock. He was out on the fire escape, a cigarette in hand, still in the over-long dress robes—he would probably collapse on the cot still wearing them—just waiting for it, and then he saw him, swooping down in front of a dingy street light.

Melchior, Orion's great-horned owl, who Sirius had once jokingly referred to as 'the Angel of Death' because of the inevitably bad news his presence augured—with a letter clutched in his talons.

Melchior landed on the bannister next to him and threw the young Master Black a curious look, as if to ask, "where have _you_ been?" Absently, he stroked the creature under its feathery chin. The bird gave him a haughty look—of course—and stuck its foot out.

"Do I have to?" he grumbled. The owl hopped up once, impatiently, and after a nip at Sirius's finger (" _Alright, already—I'll take it!"_ ) fumbling slightly, he removed the letter which bore the dreaded wax seal.

The Black family crest, complete with a ' _Toujours Pur_ ' in neat script at the top. He took pleasure in tearing it down the middle. Sirius pulled the single sheet of parchment out of the envelope and stared down at the neatly written message, perhaps the tersest he'd ever received from its sender.

 _9 o'clock—tomorrow morning—in my study._

 _Don't be late._

No signature necessary. He'd have known that handwriting anywhere—a perfectly even hand, probably born from hundreds of hours of diligent practice at penmanship, not like Sirius's own careless scrawl. Clearly _he_ had not been in a state of chaos when he'd written that note a half hour before—unlike his son, who was facing the prospect of the audience with an almost morbid dread.

To him, returning to Grimmauld Place felt like crossing into the ninth circle of Dante's hell.

In a childish pet, Sirius crumpled the parchment up in his hand and threw it off the fire escape, then rounded on the bird. It was still staring at him, with what he took to be pity.

"Are you waiting for me to write a reply?" he asked Melchior, moodily. "Fine. You can tell _him_ to—" Sirius made a rude gesture with his hand. "— _Off._ Okay? Tell him that, from me."

The owl hooted softly. Sirius sighed and leaned on heavily on the railing.

"…You won't _really_ tell him I said that, will you?" He stroked its head again, and the owl made a little noise Sirius could at least _pretend_ was of solidarity. "Good. I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Mel."

After another nip—this time more affectionate—Melchior stretched his wings and took off again into the night sky, to return to the house of Sirius's ancestors—where he was, God help him, soon to make his triumphant return.

* * *

 **And thus ends Act I! Thank you for all your kind comments about this story—it means a lot. I am well into writing Act II, but will be taking a slight break in posting to build up a few more chapters. Stay tuned for much more.**


	6. Chapter 6

ACT II: JOYEUX NOËL

 **CHAPTER 6**

 _When Sirius wrested a large golden ring bearing the Black crest from his grip Kreacher actually burst into furious tears and left the room sobbing under his breath and calling Sirius names Harry had never heard before._

 _'_ _It was my father's," said Sirius, throwing the ring into the sack. 'Kreacher wasn't_ quite _as devoted to him as to my mother, but I still caught him snogging a pair of my father's old trousers last week.'_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

 ** _December 20th, 1979_**

Overnight the weather in London had taken a turn for the worse. Miserable, driving rain had become sleet in the early hours, and so the fire was roaring when—at exactly three minutes to nine—a tall figure stepped out of the green flames and into the cavernous basement kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Sirius dusted the soot off his robes and surveyed his surroundings, critically. Copper pots hung from the ceiling, a pile of sparkling china lay next to the sink—it would be taken upstairs to the dining room, no doubt, to be placed back in the handsome cabinet where it was usually displayed. His eyes slid past the dishes to a side table, where a rag was polishing a silver tea pot all on its own.

In three years, not an object out of place—not a single solitary aspect changed. They hadn't even sprung for new tea cozies.

Sirius couldn't decide if this comforted or depressed him.

There was a loud clanging noise—the boiler—and he turned towards it, reflexively.

"Kreacher?" He took a step forward, towards the cupboard where generations of the family's house-elves had slept. "You here?"

No answer. He sighed and turned away, feeling strangely disappointed by the elf's absence. A familiar face—even one as unpleasant as Kreacher's—would've been nice right about now. He looked over at Melchior's perch in the corner—but it was empty, too, and so Sirius had no pretense to linger here, and he trudged up the steps that lead to the front hall.

Sirius tried to ignore the furtive whispers and looks of unabashed curiosity from the portraits on the walls as he hurried up the steps. He'd been called to the study, and as he wanted to get there as quickly as possible, he avoided letting his eyes linger on anything else. There were a lot of miserable memories attached to his father's sanctuary, but he was under no obligation to relive the ones he associated with _everywhere else_ in this mausoleum.

The grandfather clock on the second-floor landing ticked—one minute till, he glanced at the second hand as he walked past, now with more urgency—towards the far end of the hallway. His hand touched the silver, serpentine handle of the heavy walnut door just as the clock struck nine.

"Cutting it rather close, aren't you?"

Sirius jumped, as if he'd had an electric shock. Annoyed, he turned towards the source of the familiar voice and glared at it—it was his great-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, currently lingering in a dreadful landscape of the Dardanelles.

The former Hogwarts Headmaster did not return his glare of dislike. Instead, he merely fixed the young man with a look of feigned boredom. His descendent had always thought this particular family portrait the most irritating of the paintings in the house. Perhaps it was the fact that he had another portrait at Hogwarts and had, as a consequence, been able to quickly relay information back to his parents about his wrong-doing when Sirius was at school—or perhaps it was just his ancestor's personality that made him such an irritating verbal sparring partner.

It was very annoying, feeling as though a _painting_ had outfoxed you.

"I made it on time," Sirius pointed out, sarcastically. Phineas Nigellus raised an eyebrow and looked his descendent over. His clever eyes lingered on the wrinkled cuffs of his robes—the boy had tossed them onto the floor of his bedroom in a fit of pique a few days earlier, and not bothered to smooth them out again, which lent an aura of dishevelment to a young wizard who was already known for his lackadaisical sense of dress.

"Barely," the portrait drawled, and when Sirius looked towards the door and turned the doorknob a fraction, he coughed. "I would not do that, if I were you."

His hand froze on the door.

"If I _don't_ do that in the next five seconds, I'll be _late_."

Phineas Nigellus looked down at his fingernails.

"Yes, well—I have been _bid_ to tell you that the Master of the house begs your forgiveness, but he is exceptionally busy this morning—" The painting's lip curled upwards. "—And I'm _afraid_ your audience will have to wait."

Sirius dropped his hand from the doorknob and turned towards Phineas Nigellus.

"…Until when?" he asked, warily.

"Until he is done with whatever occupies him, I assume," Phineas Nigellus answered, voice bland. "I did not press for details. You are to wait in the drawing room in the meantime."

The young man glared at the door, consumed with a desire to kick it open.

"He's going to make me sit here _all day_ , isn't he?" he asked, indignantly. His ancestor did not bother to answer this pert question, though he kept his sly gaze fixed on his great-great-grandson, now pacing about the hall with agitation. "If he thinks he can _ice me out_ with this passive-aggressive _lord of the manor_ routine, he's got another thing coming!" He stomped down the hallway, past the clock and down the stairs to the main hall. Other members of the family had begun to stir fitfully in their mahogany frames, and Phineas followed, striding through a series of portraits of maiden aunts on his mother's side. "I came when that _snake_ asked, if he doesn't want to talk, well—that's his damn affair. He knows where to find me."

Upon making this melodramatic proclamation, he grabbed the handle of the front door and pulled, only to find it had been magically sealed shut. He knew that this fact had nothing to do with _him_ and everything to do with the _war,_ but Sirius couldn't help but feel that this was just another attempt of Orion's to spite him, and he growled and pulled harder, as if by sheer force of will he could make it open. The door remained shut fast, and after half a minute of tugging in vain, Sirius slammed both his hands against it and let out a string of profanities.

"I see you are in no better control of your temper than you were the last time you graced this house with your presence," Phineas Nigellus observed, dryly, as he watched his descendent petulantly kick the door.

"If you had a night like _I_ did," Sirius shot back, moodily. "You'd be in a foul temper, too, _believe_ me!"

"I will have to take your word for it. Of course, if _I_ had been foolish enough to be caught by my father sneaking _into_ a house," the wily old Headmaster drawled. "I would not be so imprudent as to try to _sneak_ out of one under his nose the next morning."

Sirius froze mid-tantrum and turned around, slowly.

"How do _you_ know about last night?"

His great-great-grandfather shrugged, casually—but his sly eyes told the real story. Sirius marched up to the portrait, and jabbed a finger at Phineas Nigellus—ignoring the squawk of protest from Old Aunt Megora.

"Where did you hear—" Sirius's face went white. "—He hasn't told _her_ , has he?"

"I assume by 'her' you mean the mistress of this house, my great-great-granddaughter." Sirius rolled his eyes, impatiently, and the painting continued. "As to _her_ knowledge of the incident in question, I could not tell you. Mine comes from being regrettably disturbed from my sleep at three in the morning by the Headmaster's guest—" His grandson winced, and so the portrait delivered the final blow with relish. "—a certain _Auror,_ who I gather was present during aforementioned escapade. He had _quite_ a story to tell."

Sirius shut his eyes, as if this could block out Phineas Nigellus as well. Dumbledore knew _already_?

"Was anyone else there?"

"Let me see…" Phineas Nigellus pretended to think. "I _seem_ to recall there was a rather unpleasant sort of sinister man with abysmal manners. Another Auror, perhaps? I wasn't paying much attention to who he was…though I must say, he seemed most displeased by what he heard."

Moody. _Shit._

Sirius opened his eyes again and glowered at his ancestor.

"You aren't making me want to _stay,_ you know, by piling on the bad news."

"Well, if you'd prefer to _run away_ …" The old Slytherin headmaster trailed off, significantly. "You _do_ have a known propensity for that, after all. Of course, _I_ thought you were a brave Gryffindor who wasn't 'afraid of anything.' I must've been mistaken in that."

Sirius huffed and threw him another ugly look. His ancestor stared back, impassively, entirely unaffected by the display of open dislike.

He knew what Phineas Nigellus was doing—that _taunt_ was meant to provoke him into not leaving the house. Orion had undoubtedly told the portrait to make sure he stayed put, once he was here, and he was taking the duty seriously—he was fonder of his great-grandson than most of his descendants, and the portraits, as a general rule, followed the directives of the most senior Black in near proximity to them. Sirius ran a hand through his hair, thinking it out—there wasn't any point in leaving now, was there? Much as he was dreading it, he couldn't put off this conversation indefinitely.

Better to just get it over with.

"My mother isn't here, is she?"

He felt sure he knew the answer already—if Walburga _was_ in the house, she would have already made her presence known to him. His distinguished ancestor evidently thought his demand for information about the whereabouts of the mistress of Number Twelve rather impertinent, for he tutted quietly before answering.

"I believe that she is out paying a call on one of her relations," Phineas Nigellus said, coldly. "Not that it's any of _your_ concern."

Sirius snorted. He would've thought his mother had gotten quite enough "family time" last night. She was probably still stewing over her fight with his father, and was avoiding him by getting tea with one of his aunts.

And if _that_ were the case, Orion wouldn't make him wait too long. He would want to get him out of the house before she got back and found him here.

Abruptly, he turned and marched up the stairs again.

No sooner was he through the door of the drawing room, than Sirius had flung himself down onto the long, narrow sofa. Like most of the furniture in the house, it was ornamental and wildly uncomfortable. He kicked one of the decorative cushions down onto the floor and put his legs up, dangling a foot over the scalloped back in a manner most unbecoming for a Black. He didn't care—in fact, he savored his own bad manners. Perhaps if Orion was feeling _particularly_ vindictive, he would leave his eldest son here long enough that said son could get a good nap in.

He tucked his hands behind his head and sighed. Knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to sleep until this audience was over and done with, Sirius restively looked around the room instead.

Like the kitchen, the drawing room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place looked very much the same now as it had when _he_ had lived in the house—though the distance of time spent away from the house drew into sharp relief how unnatural still and quiet it was—nearly lifeless. The cabinets, chock full of Black family heirlooms that varied in degrees of sinisterness, gleamed on either side of the fireplace. The grand piano still stood in the corner—Regulus was the only one who still played, and Kreacher had kept it gleaming bright for his young master, currently holed up a mile and half away in his elder brother's far less stately flat. No doubt he was missing it, for he liked to practice every day for at least an hour.

Sirius rolled over and stared out the windows at the sleet currently pouring outside. If this weather kept up they really _were_ in for a dismal Christmas. The piano had unexpectedly reminded him of the holiday, as it was celebrated in the house of his fathers. Regulus used to always play it for them on Christmas night, when all the rest of the relations had gone back to their own homes. It was a kind of tradition they had, just the four of them. Sometimes his mother bullied Sirius into singing, while his brother accompanied him.

He hadn't thought about that in years. Did they still do it, without him? Something twisted in his gut at the thought.

The subtle sound of a throat being cleared drew him from his thoughts. He raised his head and cursed again—Phineas Nigellus had followed him from the front hall into the drawing room by way of a painting of his great-grandmother, snoring loudly in her frame. The wily headmaster's eyes were fixed on his great-great-grandson with equal parts interest and disapproval.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, crossly.

"From what I understand," Phineas Nigellus remarked, in a dry voice. "I am looking at the future of the Black family."

His tone of voice and general demeanor suggested he felt _this_ state of affairs boded ill for the Noble House of Black. His great-great-grandson snorted—apparently his parents had been discussing him. _Great_.

"I'm not any happier than _you_ are about the will, and still being the heir, and all that." The portrait scoffed, and his descendent sat up and threw him an accusatory look. "You can thank yourself for it, as it's all your fault."

"I have been deceased for several decades, and am now a work of art," the portrait pointed out, sardonically. "In what respect can _anything_ be 'my fault'?"

"You did plenty of damage when you were alive, trust me," Sirius groused—then his face turned shrewd. " _You_ were the one who set the entail that's got me shackled to this _damn_ family."

"I did set the enchantments on the entail," Phineas Nigellus conceded. "But I hardly think that is what currently ails you."

"Well then, what does?"

"Your complete lack of common sense, for a start."

Sirius ignored the insult—something had just occurred to him.

"Wait a tick. If _you_ were the one who set the entail—you must know how to break it!" He put his feet down on the carpet, suddenly full of renewed energy. "Tell me how. You _must_ want Regulus to inherit over me—you've always liked him much better."

"My _other_ great-great-grandson has a sense of family pride and comports himself with dignity. I find it difficult to imagine _anyone_ not preferring him to the…alternative."

Sirius flung another pillow at the portrait, but he missed by a foot.

"Why'd you follow me in here, anyway?" he complained, loudly. "Just to pick at me, like a scab? You taking a page out of my mother's book now?"

"I enjoy your company even less than you enjoy mine," the portrait said, snidely. "I followed you because I have a message from Albus Dumbledore." Sirius started, and he grew very still, like a hunting dog. "Nothing else would have compelled me to spend more time than was strictly necessary in your company."

"What—Dumbledore sent you?" Sirius stood up. "What—what did he say?"

"That he wishes to see you," Phineas Nigellus reported, in a bored voice. "In his office, the day after next. That is all."

"What— _then_?" Sirius frowned, genuinely surprised at the instructions—which had no more urgency than the typical owl sent to summon him to an Order meeting. "He doesn't want to see me—sooner than that?"

He had been expecting an unpleasant conference with Dumbledore—and maybe even Moody, which would make it infinitely worse—today.

"The headmaster is a very busy man. _Apparently_ the foibles and exploits of my impudent great-great-grandson are not high on his agenda. He will see you in his office in the afternoon, day after next." Phineas Nigellus bowed, ironically—he saw no reason to wait for an answer. One did not refuse such requests when given by Dumbledore. "I will retrieve you when your father is ready to see you. I would advise you to straighten your robes."

And with that, the portrait swept from the frame and out of the drawing room. Sirius threw a rude hand gesture in his direction and turned the other way.

His eyes immediately fell on the eastern wall of the drawing room. Sirius started, as though the object was looking at now—the tapestry that had been in the family for seven centuries and had adorned this room for his entire life—had sneaked up on him and taken the young man unawares.

His eyes lingered on the header, the family motto and crest—a proud proclamation of nearly eight hundred years of Blacks, starting with old Ophiuchus the first, who had come across the channel with William the Conquerer—and ending here.

With Regulus—and with him.

He walked over to the family tree and crouched on the floor. Sirius scoured the bottom carefully—as if he needed to, as if he didn't know the exact location of what he was searching for. Perhaps he was trying to delay finding it—for the need to see proof was at war with an unexpected fear—that he wouldn't know how to feel when he did.

There it was. Right next to Regulus's name, shining in gold on the faded silk—a small hole, no bigger than a cigarette burn.

So the last three years _hadn't_ been a hallucination or a dream.

He ran a thumb over the tiny scar in the fabric—a seemingly insignificant blight on a sea of history—and tried to will himself into relief—or absent that, anger. He was surprised he felt neither…or was it that he felt both, simultaneously? It had all seemed so clear-cut back then, so definitive, getting blasted off the tree. He had thought of it like wiping a slate clean, but to see the mark with his own two eyes, now, he realized just how untrue that was. There was a scar— _he_ was a scar, an echo of something that _had_ been, that still _was_.

He remained—noticeable by his absence.

Sirius's eyes slid past the place where his own name and '1959' had once been, past Regulus, to his cousins—there were Narcissa and Bellatrix, the hole where Andromeda had once been between them. Andi, nine years married to Ted Tonks, with little Dora, a daughter of her own—neither of _them_ had ever been on here, of course. He didn't see as much of Andromeda as he'd have liked. She never said it, but he always had a feeling he reminded his favorite cousin of _them_ too much, and it made Andi sad to be around him. He was another reminder of the past—more proof it was never _really_ over.

Another scar.

He raised his gaze up to Cygnus, the girls' father, his uncle—and was surprised to find a new hole—not one that he'd expected.

A burn mark between his mother and her youngest brother.

 _Uncle Alphard._

He had a surge of startled shock, like a lightening bolt—then, just as quickly and unexpectedly—anger. When the _hell_ had _that_ happened? Alphard had made it nearly fifty years straddling—but _never_ crossing—the family line. As fond of him as Sirius had been, he could admit that his favorite uncle was as much a Slytherin as the rest of the Blacks—shrewd and careful, prudent, above all else. If he had controversial views about the usual subjects of contention, he would _never_ have voiced them in front of the hardliners. The family mattered to Alphard in a way that Sirius had never understood.

His favorite nephew glared at the burn mark. What exactly had Alphard done at the eleventh hour to merit getting removed from the family tree?

He didn't know how long he crouched there, staring at the blight—only that it took the sound of a throat being cleared to snap him out of his thoughts. Sirius stood up and turned around, unsurprised to find Phineas Nigellus, back in the portrait of his daughter, still sleeping blissfully.

"Oh…it's _you_." He gave Phineas Nigellus a sour look. "What do you have to say _now_?"

His great-great-grandfather sized him up, cooly. He seemed to notice that that his young descendent had a new aura of determination about him—but whether the portrait approved of this was difficult to say.

"The master of the house will see you now."

He felt a flicker of fear, the old trepidation at what an audience in the study with his father would bring. Sirius tempered it, stuffed it back down, and steeled himself for battle. He was a man now. There was nothing to be afraid of—it would be unpleasant, but he didn't answer to Orion anymore.

He walked out of the study, determined not to look back.

* * *

"More tea, dear?"

Mrs. Black gave no indication she had heard the question. As she had been staring blankly out the window of Mrs. Prewett's sitting room for close to quarter of an hour, this was not a great surprise to her sister-in-law.

Lucretia sighed and rolled her eyes. It was the third time her oldest friend had drifted off since she'd arrived—and it was only Mrs. Prewett's great desire for news that kept her as patient as she had been, for the witch was not, as a general rule, accustomed to being ignored. She tapped her wand against the willow-patterned teapot, and it floated up and over her sister-in-law's cup, filling it again—the milk jug and sugar bowl followed. Walburga hardly noticed the cup and saucer floating towards her—until Lucretia flicked her hand, and the cup overspilled into her lap.

Mrs. Black let out an unseemly yelp.

"Watch what you're _doing_ , Lucretia!" She dabbed at her skirts with her wand while Mrs. Prewett hid her smile by stuffing another scone in her mouth. "You practically _scalded_ me."

Lucretia patted her lips with the napkin. She'd successfully gotten Burgie's attention, at least—even if she was annoyed, now, and likely to be cross for the rest of tea.

"I'm sorry, dear. An accident—my wand slipped," Lucretia soothed. Walburga continued to glower at her. "You could've come this afternoon, you know, if you were still tired from last night's festivities."

Mrs. Black finished dabbing at her dress and snatched the still-floating cup from the air. She took a dainty sip, still fuming.

"I couldn't _stand_ to be in that house," she admitted, setting the cup back down. The other woman watched her fixedly, still chewing on the scone. "I felt shut up. I simply _had_ to get away."

"From the house—or your husband?" Mrs. Prewett asked, innocently. Her sister-in-law gave her a withering look. "Oh, come now, you weren't _exactly_ making a secret of it last night. You and 'Rion were rowing something dreadful."

"Your brother is an insufferable fool," she informed Lucretia, primly. "I can't imagine what I was _thinking,_ marrying him."

"I seem to recall he didn't give you much of a choice," Lucretia remarked, blithely. "Of course, after you lead him 'round by the nose for all those years—it was only right he should get his own back." She took another long sip of tea. "Turnabout's fair play, after all."

"That is _not_ what happened!" Walburga snapped, irritably. "Whatever stories he's filled your head with to make me out the villain, they're fibs—every last one. That man has caused me nothing but grief for a quarter century."

Walburga's voice had risen, and she was being very dramatic—a sure sign to Lucretia she didn't mean a word of what she was saying. As debating the finer points of her brother and sister-in-law's courtship was _not_ the reason she had invited her to tea, Mrs. Prewett decided—for now—to drop the argument.

"You don't mean that, Burgie…it hasn't _all_ been bad," she said, her voice overly innocent. "After all—he gave you that magnificent son of yours you've got tucked away in Lisson Grove, didn't he?"

Mrs. Black's face went the color of clotted cream.

"I _knew_ that man couldn't be trusted," she hissed, furiously. "How much did he tell you?"

"Not nearly enough!" Lucretia laughed, clapping her hands together. "Why do you think I've summoned you? All I know is that you've been going to see my disgraceful nephew on the sly—it's too delicious, you must tell me everything."

"I must tell you _nothing_ ," Walburga shot back. "You know more than you should already—and mind you keep it to yourself and not blab like your fool of a brother."

"Don't be hard on Orion. I wheedled it out of him—he was very reluctant to spill the beans." Walburga snorted into her cup. "And from what _I_ hear, your eldest is giving him _quite_ the time of it—picking right up where he left off, I'd say."

"A father who can't control his own son is no man at all," Mrs. Black sniffed, haughtily—her sister-in-law only laughed.

"And a woman who can't control either is—what, exactly?" Mrs. Prewett rejoined, archly. Walburga stood up, looking so incensed her cousin thought she might actually storm out, so she raised a hand in supplication. "It was a joke—only a silly joke, dear! I would never impugn your talents at—domestic management."

Her friend huffed—but Lucretia could see that she wasn't going to leave—not now. Now that Walburga knew she was in the know, she would want her as a confidante.

"Certainly not," she replied, tartly, her silvery grave eyes glittering in the drab winter light of the morning. "I've always kept—a good house, haven't I?"

"The best," Mrs. Prewett lied, in flattering tones—though Walburga wasn't much paying attention to her. Her sister-in-law thought she looked rather tireder than would have been expected from the evening—Burgie had confessed to having left soon after her—and a little red around the eyes.

"Regulus behaves himself," she murmured, half to herself. " _He_ listens to me, at least—even if the other two don't."

"A most respectable young man," Lucretia agreed, solemnly. "Good gracious, what will he think when he comes back from France and finds you've been holed up with his disgraceful elder brother?"

Walburga's eyes snapped up, and she threw the other woman a piercing look.

"Orion really didn't tell you much, did he?" she asked, voice shrewd, her eyes narrowed. "About how all this came to be."

"Not a word, darling—that's what I've been saying!" her sister-in-law exclaimed, waving a licorice stick around in excitement. "I want details, and Orion wouldn't give them to me."

"Quite right. You have an indiscreet tongue, Lucretia Black. I tell you, you'll spill it to half the wizards of this country."

Mrs. Prewett dropped the licorice into her tea with a pout, feeling very put-out. She did not see her sister-in-law's refusal to relay sensitive information as a precaution—only robbing her of a good treat.

"If you aren't going to tell me how it happened, at least tell me how me how my nephew _is_." She smiled, wickedly. "Has he grown very handsome since I last saw him?"

"Very." Mrs. Black was clearly torn between maternal pride and annoyance at this fact. "And he knows it, worst of all."

Lucretia nodded. This was old wisdom at its finest—handsome men who were aware of the fact were a dangerous breed.

"I suppose he's rather wild, now," she asked, with a tad more timidity. Walburga's nostrils flared. "What has he been up to, in exile?"

"From what _I_ can tell, Sirius Orion spends his evenings flinging himself this way and that, gadding about the country getting into all manner of _scrapes_." At this florid description of her nephew's activities, Mrs. Prewett laughed. "He dresses like a common Muggle and lives in a cesspit—it's almost too much for me to bear. He is living completely beneath his station, Lucretia—you wouldn't _believe_ that place."

Lucretia's mouth twitched. She had known Walburga her entire life, and could tell when her cousin was truly upset and when she was posturing—and it was quite obvious to her that beneath this harping, the mother was utterly delighted at the renewed challenge taming her elder son presented.

"Well, what can you expect?" Lucretia said, dipping a biscuit into her cup. "He probably can't afford better. Young men who've been _disowned_ must make their own fortune in the world, after all."

Her sister-in-law's scowl turned into a Cheshire smile.

"But he hasn't _been_ disowned," Mrs. Black said, calmly.

" _What_?"

"He hasn't been disowned," she repeated, with ill-disguised triumph. "Orion never changed his will—he never took Sirius out of the line of succession."

This bold declaration had the immediate desired effect—Mrs. Prewett dropped the spoon she'd been stirring her tea, it clattered loudly on the saucer. She looked up at Walburga, astonished.

"You don't mean that Sirius is still set to inherit under the entail, do you?" Her sister-in-law nodded, grimly. Lucretia was genuinely astonished. "After three years? How could Orion of _all men_ overlook that?"

Mrs. Black popped a grape into her mouth and shrugged, unconcerned.

"I don't know or care _why_ he did it. All that matters is that my son remains his father's heir and the future head of this family." Her eyes glittered. "And it's going to _stay_ that way, if I have my druthers."

Something of the threat lingered in Mrs. Black's words. Mrs. Prewett eyed her across the table, a wary expression playing across her face.

"I'd know that look anywhere, Walburga. You're _scheming_ ," she said, voice accusatory. "What exactly do you think you're going to do?"

"What I should have done three years ago," Walburga replied, her voice resolute. "I am going to restore my son's reputation in the Black family, of course!"

The aura of a general preparing herself for battle hung about Mrs. Black. Her sister-in-law decided that it would be prudential for her to choose her next words—and express her opinions about this proposed course of action—very prudently.

"That's a very bold plan. Darling—" Lucretia hesitated when she saw the flash of displeasure in her friend's eyes. "I am very sympathetic to your _plight_. _I_ would take your eldest back in a heartbeat—he's charm itself, as far as _I'm_ concerned—but has it occurred to you there are rather a lot of large obstacles in the way of…reinstalling him?"

"Like what, for example?"

Mrs. Prewett resisted the urge to roll her eyes and her sister-in-law's indignance at this perfectly rational question.

"Convincing the rest of the family, for a start! Sirius has always been a trouble-maker, and after that disappearing act he pulled, well—" Lucretia shuddered. "It will take a minor miracle to get my father to forgive and forget _that_."

At this mention of her formidable father-in-law and his infamously long memory, Mrs. Black drew herself up.

"I am not afraid of Arcturus Black," Walburga sniffed, cooly, the subtext clear: unlike you and your brother. Her sister-in-law rolled her eyes. "I can handle him."

Mrs. Prewett doubted that, knowing her father—precious few people could.

"And what about your son?" Lucretia pressed. "Have you told _him_ this idea you have, this grand scheme to bring him back into the fold?"

Walburga looked evasively down at her uneaten treacle tart.

"He has…some inkling of it," she admitted, with obvious reluctance. "He knows he's still the heir—Orion told him."

"And how did he take the news?" Mrs. Black fidgeted in her chair, and her friend sighed heavily and tapped the teapot again, signaling that it should pour another cup for her. "Oh, _honestly_ , Burgie—you tried all this _years_ ago, and where did it get you? He ran off and left you heartbroken."

Mrs. Black's cheeks flushed scarlet at this recollection of the worst moment in her life, her supreme failure—not even Orion on the best days dared bring it up directly to her, knowing how worked up she could get at the mere memory.

"It's entirely different now!" Walburga insisted, hotly. "Orion _finally_ has him under control. He's actually behaving himself, for once!"

Mrs. Prewett frowned as she watched her sister-in-law dump an inordinate amount of sugar into her cup. Lucretia was more than a little skeptical. Considering Orion's dour mood, and what she'd managed to glean from the twins about her nephew's exploits, she found the notion that he had suddenly 'settled down' and was behaving himself highly suspect. How much did Walburga know? She'd said he was gadding about—did she realize that her precious eldest was doing so on Dumbledore's orders, fighting in his illicit gang of soldiers, outside of Ministry control?

Most witches wouldn't be fussing over _reputations_ if they knew their son had thrown himself directly into the path of the Dark Lord—but then again, this _was_ Walburga she was dealing with. A clever woman, but she could be remarkably obtuse when it came to things like 'war' and 'politics', the sort of subjects she had long-since consigned to the men to sort out.

Maybe she didn't realize—or perhaps she simply viewed that part of the taming of Sirius as her husband's domain.

"Gotten your naughty boy to behave, at last?" Lucretia asked, in a dry voice. "How did my brother achieve _that_ feat?"

Her companion dunked a scone into the sludgy tea and nibbled on the end, thoughtful.

"I haven't figured out _how_ he's doing it quite yet. It's working marvelously well, whatever it is." Walburga smiled, pleased at the thought. "Sirius Orion is dressing as we tell him, and eating dinner with us—even holding his tongue, occasionally. I think my husband is exerting considerable— _pressure_ , if you know what I mean."

Lucretia, as it happens, _did_ know what Walburga meant. A spot of blackmail, was it? She smirked. Well—wasn't _that_ devious of Orion? To her surprise, the matron found herself a little impressed with her younger brother. He was cunning, and unlike his wife, he didn't parade about crowing over it. 'Rion wouldn't be the first Black to dragoon an unruly son through coercion—but Lucy wouldn't have thought _he_ had it in him.

What dirt did he have on Sirius? Perhaps Orion had found out about the flying motorcycle, and was now threatening to tell the boy's mother. Burgie couldn't have yet known _that_ detail—Lucretia would have already had to listen to a half-hour long stricture from her sister-in-law if the woman had gotten wind that her son was riding around on a filthy Muggle contraption.

"Of course, he still has his stubborn streak—and occasional bouts of _defiance_." Walburga pursed her lips. "I'm eager to snuff _that_ out, naturally—but it will be easier _after_ I've secured his position to…smooth over the rough edges."

'Smooth over the rough edges'…good heavens. Lucretia did not envy her poor nephew. What would be left of the boy, after his overbearing mama had sandpapered him down?

She studied her cousin's face. Mixed in with her stubborn determination she thought she caught a whiff of desperation—though Burgie was too proud to ever admit it. She needed Lucretia's help, whether she realized it or not.

"Alright, dear. I see you're determined to see this venture through." She sighed and set her cup down on the saucer again, resigned. "And though I think it fool-hardy…I _am_ curious to hear what your strategy for accomplishing it."

"It's very simple." She lowered the half-eaten pastry to the table. "I'm going to find him a wife."

Mrs. Prewett choked, spraying crumbs over the table.

"I _beg_ your pardon?" she managed to get out, after a moment of recovering herself with liberal gulps of tea. "You're going to do _what_?"

"I'm going to arrange a marriage for my son," Mrs. Black said, matter-of-factly and with utmost dignity. Her sister-in-law started to laugh.

"What on earth is that—how is _that_ going to help?"

Walburga narrowed her eyes, irritated. Was Lucretia pretending to be dull-witted just to annoy her?

"Isn't it obvious? My sons are the only young, unmarried men in the family—they are the soul hope for the continuation of the Black name," she said, unable to keep the pride from her voice. "If I find Sirius a bride with an impressive lineage and dowry, and they have strong, healthy sons—no one is going to remember some—ridiculous folly in his youth. "

Mrs. Prewett did not think her father or Walburga's parents would _ever_ see being a Gryffindor blood traitor that had run away from home as a mere 'folly'—but she had other, more pressing issues with this idea.

"Putting aside my reservations with your logic—and I have _many_ —do you honestly think Sirius likely to _agree_ to an arranged marriage?"

Walburga's expression would not have been out of place among barracudas.

"I'm not planning on giving him a choice." Lucretia groaned inwardly. "I have no proof, but I think that there have been… _women._ "

She paused for dramatic effect, thinking this scandalous behavior would shock Mrs. Prewett—but it didn't.

"Of course there have been women, dear." Lucretia shrugged. "He's a man, like any other. If there weren't, he'd be the first of his kind in our family."

"That is not true! My husband never carried on with Muggles tramps!" Walburga snapped, indignantly. "And nor does my younger son."

"Well, I suppose that's fair," her friend conceded. "Orion was a picture of uprightness and propriety—and Regulus is much the same." She smiled, and continued, casually. "Have you cursed any of these unfortunates, yet?"

"He's clever enough to keep them well away from me," the other woman grumbled. "Rest assured, if I ever see of one of those hussies—" She made a threatening motion with her wand, then sighed—wanting to put the distasteful thought of her son's paramours out of her head. "The point is that marriage is the easiest way to quash such things, and anyway—we'll have to find someone for him eventually, so why put it off?"

Mrs. Prewett stared at her in frank amazement—she was really serious about this. It appeared marriage to her stodgy and old-fashioned brother had taken its toll on Walburga Black. Was it too early for a brandy? Lucretia sucked in a long breath and prepared herself for what was sure to be a painful conversation.

"Dear—it's just….that's all well and good, but things have…changed since _we_ were married." Mrs. Black stared at her, blankly. "Arranged matches—they aren't really done anymore."

Mrs. Prewett might have grown two heads, for how perturbed her sister-in-law looked at this new information.

"What do you mean, 'they aren't done anymore'?"

"I mean that they've fallen out of fashion."

"But then—how do young people meet?" Walburga asked, flabbergasted. "Without parents making proper introductions, how do they find wives and husbands?"

"Nowadays they choose for themselves, as I understand it." She almost enjoyed the look of shock and displeasure on her friend's face. "No parents involved at all."

"The parents don't have a say? What utter foolishness." Despite her misgivings, she seemed intrigued by these modern notions. "How do they socialize?"

"It's _de rigueur_ for young men to take girls out to cafes or the theatre—dates, they call them." Mrs. Black looked faintly horrified—she found herself enjoying it. "Quite alone, from what I'm told."

"Wizards taking unmarried witches out—unchaperoned?" she asked, scandalized. "That is utter barbarism. Purebloods aren't doing this sort of thing, are they?"

"Everyone's doing it, darling." Mrs. Prewett lowered her voice. "They've even started living together."

"Before they're _married_?" Lucretia giggled at the amount of incredulity her friend managed to pack into that question. "If _this_ is the current state of wizard-kind in this country, it's no wonder we're at war."

"What interesting political commentary you provide!" her friend laughed. "Oh, don't get the vapors, Burgie—you aren't _that_ shocked. People used to sneak off behind the greenhouses when we were at school from time-to-time. I seem to recall that even _you_ got caught more than once—or am I misremembering?"

"At least _then_ we knew it was shameful behavior," Walburga snapped, coldly. "We weren't proud of ourselves."

"It's so funny to see Orion's influence at work on you," Lucretia observed, thoughtfully. "You were never this much of a traditionalist when you were a girl."

Walburga's stare over the rim of her cup was chilly, to say the least.

"I married the man my parents picked for me, didn't I?"

"True…of course, they picked him for you when you were fifteen, and you were nearly thirty when you wed." Her sister-in-law grinned. "Hardly a docile bride, by my reckoning! I can't imagine _your son_ being any more docile of a _groom_."

Walburga clenched her jaw mulishly.

"Arranged marriage was good enough for his mother and his father, and it will be good enough for Sirius Orion," Mrs. Black said, firmly. "That is how we do things in our family. It is traditional and it is right."

There was an air of finality to this; Mrs. Prewett shook her head and tutted. It was obvious that her line of logic wasn't going to work—Walburga hated to have her the indiscretions of her youth brought up, and she was so stubborn that now that her plan had been criticized she was only going to dig her heels in.

"If you aren't going to help me find a suitable match for my son, I'll take my leave of you," she sniffed, haughtily, pushing her chair out roughly. "Narcissa is staying with us, and I'm meeting her for lunch at the Club. I have many errands I need to run in the meantime."

She marched towards the door where her coat and purse hung.

"Will your errands take you to Lisson Grove, by chance?" Walburga froze, then turned on her heel. This innocent question elicited a fierce glare. "Walburga, don't be cross—you know I mean well and want the best for you."

"Then why don't you help me, instead of criticizing?" her sister-in-law demanded, throwing her coat on with a huff. Mrs. Prewett rose from the table and crossed to her.

"I a _m_ helping!" She patted her friend's arm gently. "I'm telling you, this plan of yours to force your son into a marriage is…ill-advised."

Walburga lowered her wand, suddenly looking tired and careworn.

"Well—what do you suggest?" she asked, silkily. "I don't suppose you have any _better_ ideas."

It was very rare for Walburga Black to admit that she needed help, so Lucretia thought for a long time before she answered the question.

"Maybe don't—hold on quite as tightly as you did last time. You've been handed a great opportunity, here, however it came about—you must take care you don't make the same mistakes." Walburga's lip trembled. "You push him too hard, you're liable to lose that boy again."

Mrs. Black said nothing—a sure sign she was listening at last.

"Sirius is not going to marry a woman his _mama_ tells him to, full-stop. He'll want to choose for himself," Lucretia continued, gently but firmly. "If you're determined to match-make, stick to focusing on Regulus, where you actually have a chance of success."

Mrs. Black frowned, confused by this abrupt subject change.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, confused. "What does Regulus have to do with any of this?"

"Well, you did send him to France to get married, Burgie!" Mrs. Prewett laughed. "Goodness, I know Sirius eclipses his poor brother, but you gave me a letter from the child just yesterday."

"Oh—right." She fiddled with her handbag, looking pensive. "I'd…forgotten."

She snapped the bag shut, adjusted her coat and made a move towards the door, more eager than ever to leave. She seemed even more upended and distracted than she'd been when she arrived. Lucretia put a hand on her shoulder.

"You _will_ think about what I've said, Walburga." Lucretia gave her an encouraging smile. "About taking care?"

Mrs. Black did not return the smile—she was lost in her own thoughts again.

"I'll…consider it."

Well, Mrs. Prewett thought, watching her sister-in-law summon the elf from the pantry and sweep out the front of door—that was probably the closest she was going to get to a 'thank you.'

* * *

Sirius loudly cleared his throat—an affected and wholly undignified noise, akin to a Kneazle hacking up a dirt clod.

His father gave no indication he had heard his eldest son, or that he was even aware of his presence in the room. As this was the third time he had tried to get the older man's attention in this manner, Sirius was not surprised the method had failed—but he was left no less irritated by the fact.

He had been standing here being _ignored_ by Orion for nearly ten minutes.

Sirius should have known that being made to wait in the drawing room for a mere quarter-hour was too good to be true. After Phineas Nigellus's somber declaration that the he was ready to be received, Sirius had marched up the stairs to the study door, knocked, waited for the gatekeeper of the inner sanctum to grant permission for him to cross the threshold, a placid voice had said the magic words, "Enter", and he had obeyed.

Mr. Black was sitting at his desk, just as his son had expected, with a magnificent ostrich-feather quill poised over parchment he was writing on. As soon as Sirius had stepped into the dark, mahogany-paneled room—elegant bookshelves filled with questionably licit tomes, the Black family and Orion's personal collection of magical artifacts lining the walls—the door had creaked shut behind him.

That had been ten minutes ago. In that time, Mr. Black had not looked up from the parchment once.

Sirius shifted his weight from one foot to the other, feeling fidgety and cross. In these audiences, one never dared sit down unless one was invited to, and so he stood—half-way between the door and desk, rubbing his toe into the Persian carpet, waiting for Orion to look up and _actually_ acknowledge him.

As much as he would have liked to tempt fate and plop down in the chair, permission be damned, Sirius felt it would be a show of weakness—a tacit admission that he was tired and standing was unpleasant—and he was determined not to let his father see that he was getting to him.

 _I'm not going to give him the satisfaction._

Of course, even if Orion _was_ enjoying himself, he would never be so ill-bred as to show it—Sirius's father had turned freezing people out into an art form. There were none of the usual tells that would indicate this was a performative act—no surreptitious glances up to see how the routine was being received, no strategic coughs to punctuate the torture—no, it really did seem as though Mr. Black had gone temporarily deaf and blind, and was going about his daily rituals, oblivious to the impatient young man waiting for him to speak.

Of course, Sirius knew better.

After a lifetime of having the man for a father, he understood this game well enough—Orion was a master of it. It was _all_ deliberate. He might make his son wait another five minutes—or another five hours—but the moment Sirius let his guard down would be the moment Orion would spring the trap.

So his son would wait, alert and watchful—and try not to get too bored in the meantime.

That was tough, though. The study was as frozen in time as every other room in the house, and so looking around did nothing to distract him from his current situation—it only brought back unwanted memories of similar audiences, years ago, better left undisturbed. He would've bet good gold that not a single object on the shelves that adorned this room—the darkest in the house, for there was only one window, and Orion rarely opened the velvet curtains—had moved since the last time he had stood in this spot.

August 18th, 1976.

 _That was the last time I was in here._

The sound of the quill being dipped in an ink-pot startled him, and Sirius turned back towards the desk.

That was the moment that Orion chose to raise his eyes.

"Oh—Sirius." Mr. Black blinked up at his son, as if he was a little surprised to see him. "How long have you been standing there?"

Sirius blinked. Orion raised a hand and carelessly waved towards the chair, gesturing that he should sit. His son didn't move.

"Not…long." He tried to keep his own voice neutral, but he could hear the edge in it.

"Well, you should have said something," Mr. Black remarked, blandly. "I would've told you to sit down."

His lip twitched, but remembering his vow, he resisted his natural urge to snap something back. Very slowly, Sirius stepped forward—the five paces it took for him to reach the enormous desk—and lowered himself into the interrogation chair, as he used to call it.

On the desk were the only signs that time had continued to pass in the house since Sirius had left it. A stack of large, heavy books towered above them on the far right corner, next to a seal letter, and, odder still—a large sack of gold. As his father hated clutter above all else, Sirius's eyes were drawn to these things—but just as quickly as he had glanced at them, they flitted back to his father.

Orion folded his hands on the desktop and looked at the young man across from him.

His expression was placid—not a trace of last night's anger. To look at him now, you'd never be able to guess what the crafty old snake was thinking.

Mr. Black was at his most dangerous, now.

"It certainly has been a long time," the middle-aged man said, after a short pause. "Since you've been here, I mean."

"It sure has." Sirius peered around the room in an exaggerated fashion. "I love what you've done with the place. Is that a new paperweight you've acquired?"

There was just enough sarcasm to elicit a raised eyebrow from Orion. He picked up the object—a heavy ivory coiled serpent with ruby eyes—and held it out to his son with an air of faint irony.

"No, it's the same one I've always had. A family heirloom. I'm surprised you've forgotten," Sirius did not take the carved snake monstrosity, and so he put it back down on top of a stack of fresh parchment behind his ink-blotter. "In your youth, you often told me you thought it was _watching you_."

So, they were warming up for this with the old 'casual smalltalk' routine, were they? Well, he was more than game for that.

"Did I?" Sirius tapped his chin, theatrically. "Fancy that. What an imaginative child I was."

Once again, his father ignored the sarcasm. Orion could not have been calmer— _Merlin,_ did it piss him off.

"I quite agree," the wizard remarked, idly. "I seem to recall you even insisting it was going to spring to life and _bite you_."

God, if only it had—then he'd be dead and buried and not stuck here having belligerent chitchat with his father.

Sirius sat up straighter in his chair.

"Well, this is pleasant and all—but don't you think we should get down to it?" Sirius crossed his arms and slouched in a provoking manner. "I would hate to take up too much of your _precious time_."

Orion nodded, slowly—expression still guarded.

"And I yours." His voice remained that perfect level of unconcerned placidity. Mr. Black picked up the parchment he'd been writing on, the ink now dry, and held it out to his son to take.

"For you. I apologize for keeping you waiting—but this took quite a bit longer than I thought, and I wanted it to be done for you when we met."

Confused and suspicious, he leaned over the desk and snatched the parchment from the outstretched hand.

Sirius stared down at it for a full five seconds, reading and then—rereading the utterly improbable words on the page.

"This is…a shopping list."

Mr. Black began to gather stray pieces of spare parchment from around the desk, and with a wave of his wand he bundled them together and vanished a stray ink stain from the woodgrain.

When he looked up from this task, he found his son staring at him perplexity.

"An unexpected amount of family business has suddenly come up, and it all needs to be dealt with before the new year—as a consequence, I find myself quite short on free time." He gestured to the parchment, which Sirius had just realized, horrified—was double-sided. "I need you to pick up a few, ah— _items_ for me before the holiday."

It was the second time in as many days that Sirius had been handed a Christmas list from a member of his estranged family—and from Orion, sitting smugly behind his massive desk, it was far worse than from Reggie.

"You need me," Sirius paused, dramatically. "To do your _shopping_ for you."

"Mm, yes. There's enough gold there for you, I think." Orion flicked his head in the direction of the heavy sack of galleons on the desk and the sealed note. "Regulus told me he's already given you _his_ list, but I've had him write it out again, in case you were unfortunate enough to have…misplaced it."

Sirius curled his lip. If by _misplace_ , he meant chucked in the bin, then yes, he _had_ 'misplaced' Regulus's shopping list.

" _This_ is why you called me here?" He waved the parchment impudently in the air. Mr. Black looked at him from across the desk, nonplussed. "To give me a…list of presents to buy, for you and Regulus?"

"Yes—well, there _was_ one other thing." Orion pointed at the tower of books next to the gold that Sirius had, thus far, made no move to reach for. " _Those_ are for you, as well."

He looked back around at the stack with as much trepidation, as he would if he'd been told they carried spattergroit.

"What are they?" Sirius asked, through gritted teeth.

"The family letters, compiled by Phineas Nigellus—for your opal project, remember?" Orion clasped his hands together, thoughtfully. "1815 to 1900. That should give you a wide enough berth of correspondence, if your brother's hunch about them being tied to the main estate is true." Sirius looked from the mountain of books back at his father, fresh horror in his eyes. "You two have your work cut out for you, I must say. There have to be at least a three thousand letters from the period in question. Still—" Orion stood up and crossed around to the right side of the desk. "—You're both clever. I'm sure something useful will come of your…sleuthing."

Before Sirius could loudly protest the injustice of this, Mr. Black had picked up the impossibly tall stack of books and deposited them into his arms. The boy practically staggered under the weight, and was too caught off-guard to protest the heavy sack of gold also being shoved into his hand, along with the sealed letter that contained Regulus's list of gifts.

While his son tried desperately to keep his balance, Orion crossed back around the desk and sat down, calm as ever.

"That was all." He pulled out a fresh piece of parchment from the stack and Sirius watched him—from around the wide books currently obstructing his vision—actually begin writing again. "You may go."

Sirius gaped at his father in undisguised fury—and then he roughly deposited the stack of books into his chair and tossed the sack of gold back onto the table.

"Is this your idea of a punishment?"

His father looked up again. Outwardly, he appeared genuinely baffled by this line of inquiry—and he paid no mind to the furious expression on his son's face while he considered his answer.

"A punishment? Goodness, no—I don't think so." Mr. Black tilted his head, quizzically. "When _I_ was your age, I would often do errands like this for my father. It's part of a young man's education."

"Education— _really_?" Sirius squinted down at the parchment still half-crumpled in his fist. "Granddad had you buy great-aunt Cassiopeia a fox-fur muff to _teach_ you something, did he?"

"Well—my sister Lucretia would probably have been the one to do shopping for him, if it was necessary," Mr. Black admitted, blandly. "But as you _have_ no sister, only a house-bound brother, the task falls to you. I have every confidence in your abilities, of course."

Sirius watched Orion open the top door of his desk and pull out a container of sealing wax and bronze seal. He was actually—he was finishing up a letter, the bastard!

" _This_ is all you wanted to talk about, really?" He sarcastically waved the list above his head. "Didn't have _anything_ else on your mind—had _no other_ reason for calling me here?"

Mr. Black looked up from his letter—the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"No, I did not." Orion's eyes glinted, coldly. "What _other_ reason would I have to summon you this morning, Sirius?"

Father and son stared at each other for a long moment. Orion's expression remained as placid as ever—but there was unmistakable steel behind those slate-gray eyes.

Sirius's own widened. Oh—so _that_ was how it was going to go. Well, if those were the rules they were playing by—so be it.

"No reason," he replied, in a casual voice, and he cleared the chair of books, shoving them onto the floor—and sat back down in the chair. "No reason at all."

Mr. Black had pulled out a large accounts book that he was now studying. When he glanced up from it to find his son back in the chair, his eyes flickered with some emotion Sirius couldn't identify.

He hoped it was anger.

"You probably shouldn't linger," Orion drawled, casually, head still bent over the page. "After all, you have a lot to get to—and not many daylight hours in which to do it."

"Oh, I think I have a little time to chat with my father," Sirius remarked, studying his nails. "Did you have a good time at the party last night?"

Mr. Black's quill hovered over the page for a fraction of a second longer than it should.

"I'm sure we'll discuss the celebration at dinner tonight in mind-numbing detail," Orion replied, a very slight warning in his voice as he began to write. "I would hate to bore you by…repeating myself."

"And how's your father?"

"He's well—much the same."

"So he's thriving. Fantastic. Good to hear the old boy's alive and kicking at seventy-eight." Sirius leaned forward. "And that everyone enjoyed themselves. The festivities were suitably—festive?"

"As far as these things go, I would say—yes."

Sirius put one of his elbows on the desk and propped his chin up. His father was staring down a the page—but he could see quite plainly Orion's eyes weren't moving.

"So _Suffolk_ was as lovely as ever? _Noire_ House was dolled up to the nines, packed with Blacks?"

"We didn't have the party in Suffolk this year, actually," Mr. Black said, his voice still pleasant—though a tad clipped. "Abraxas Malfoy offered to host it for us at his manor house in Wiltshire. Very hospitable of him, I thought."

Sirius gasped in theatrical surprise.

"Did he, really? That _is_ thoughtful. Beautiful house, Malfoy Manor." Sirius paused. "Funny story about that house—I actually lost something inside of it, last time I was there."

"Oh? Did you?"

Orion's fingers tightened around his quill—Sirius could see it trembled.

"Yeah—a silver flask. It's pretty distinctive. Got a dent in the corner from when this _astoundingly_ uptight wizard I know—in a state of supreme rage— _hurled_ into it into a stone fireplace." He tilted his head down—his father was now staring hard at the page—and his eyes weren't moving. "There's sentimental value, though. You didn't happen to say…find something like that lying around, did you?"

For a raw moment he thought he'd succeeded in cracking the old man's icy facade—but then, to his surprise, Orion actually reached into the inner pocket and pulled out the object in question.

He tossed the flask on the table in front of his son—it landed with a clunk.

"It's a very odd thing," he said, coldly. "But as it turns out—I _did."_

The younger man smiled in delight. Clearly Orion was willing to take this all the way. Sirius almost respected it.

"Wow—what are the odds of _that_?"

Sirius picked up the flask and examined it, thoroughly. He held the dent to his eye and let out a low whistle.

"Will you look at that impression?" Sirius asked, in exaggerated awe. "Man, the tosser who did _this_ must've been really pissed off, don't you think? The temper on the person who did this must be—"

Mr. Black slammed his accounts book shut and looked up from the desk, red-faced and mouth frozen in a hard line. Sirius tilted his head, all innocence.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Orion asked, in a thoroughly aggravated voice.

His firstborn son smiled broadly and tossed the bent silver object up into the air a few times before tucking it into his pocket.

"I'm having a ball." He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "This is _fun_. It's like a parlor game—I could keep it up all day."

"You should leave," his father snapped, icily. "I have _nothing_ more to say to you."

"I don't think that's true." Sirius lowered the chair back onto the floor and looked his father straight in the eyes. "I think you have _a lot_ more to say to me—and I don't believe for one _damn_ minute you called me here just to give me a list of errands to run."

Orion stared at his son for a long moment—his eyes narrowed.

"I have no interest in playing _games_."

"No—you have no interest in _losing_ games," Sirius shot back. His father froze in a pose of dangerous calm. "You're the one who started this. What's the matter—don't like having your old tricks used against you?" The younger man sneered. "Can dish it out, but you can't take it?"

Mr. Black let out a slow, calming breath—but his son could see the tell-tale sign that Orion was very close to losing control again—the throbbing vein in his neck, for one.

"What _exactly_ do you hope to accomplish, here?" he asked, in a soft voice. "What is this _getting_ you?"

Sirius stared back—trying very hard not to blink.

"I want to talk about last night." He tried to keep his voice even, for to lose _his_ temper now would be to cede the field to his father early, and he might never get it back. "That's all. It's what I _thought_ this was about."

Orion's lips were as thin a line as Sirius had ever seen them.

"The events of last night," the middle-aged man said, through gritted teeth—forcing himself to be calm. "Were _highly_ unfortunate for all parties involved. I have no wish to revisit them with you—now or _ever_." Sirius bolted up straight, expression mutinous. "Frankly, given the unpleasantness of our… _tete-a-tete_ , I would have thought you'd be _eager_ for a reprieve."

Sirius laughed—a loud, mocking, humorless laugh that had the desired effect—Orion bristled, visibly.

"Oh, give me a break— _a reprieve_? Whatever _this_ is, it is _not_ a reprieve. With you, it _never_ is." He stood up again, slamming his hands on the table. "Last time I walked away from a fight with _you_ , I gave you three years to stew on it, and the next time you saw me, you nearly threw me off a building!"

Orion's expression blackened. Sirius slouched back down in his chair, defiantly crossing his arms across his chest.

"Here's the thing—I've learned my lesson, Dad. I'm not leaving this unresolved between us, not again." He glowered at his father. "If you want to _have it out_ with me, you're going to have to do it here and now."

There was a long pause. Sirius stared up at his father, impatiently. Orion stared back—face calm, the mask firmly back in place. They maintained this for nearly a minute, neither one moving, until Orion actually started to laugh.

"What _exactly_ are you waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for _you_ ," his son snapped back, peevishly. "Come on—just do it. Yell at me."

To Sirius's extreme annoyance, this response prompted a sarcastic smile from his father.

"I am not going to raise my voice," Mr. Black informed him, calmly. "I have no desire to _shout_."

"Of course you want to shout," Sirius exclaimed, hotly. "It's _all_ you want to do."

"No—it's all _you_ want me to do," Orion said, cutting off the inevitable string of profanities about to issue forth from his firstborn's lips. " _You_ want me to scream and bellow and carry on. You're practically _begging_ for histrionics—but I'm not your _mother_. You're not going to get them from me."

Orion stood up, crossed back in front of the desk—for once, his son had no response. He paced up and down, arms folded behind his back.

"Shouting at you would only satisfy me if I thought it actually had an _effect_ ," he spat, turning sharply on his heel. "But it doesn't. You won't listen. You want me to shout so you can shout back, and then walk out that door, wallowing in your injuries, a 'tragic hero', as fully convinced of your own _righteousness_ as you were when you walked in. You have been trotting out this tedious little _martyr_ routine with me since you were _eight years old,_ and to tell you the truth—I'm sick to _death_ of it."

This speech ended like the crack of a whip. Sirius glared at him, stonily, his breathing loud and harsh—but he couldn't seem to decide what to yell at his father for, first—or perhaps it was the the risk of doing exactly what Orion had accused him of that held him back.

Mr. Black stared down at Sirius, whose eyes were now fixed on an empty stretch of canvas on the wall.

"If you're that desperate to discuss last night—" he continued, sharply. "—Then _you_ can be the one to speak first. I think you'll agree you _owe me_ that."

Sirius jerked his head around.

"What the hell are you expecting _from me_?"

"Two things," Mr. Black said, holding up the fingers, as if he were talking to a child so slow he needed to illustrate the point in this fashion. "Your keenly expressed gratitude…and your sincere remorse." Sirius let out an involuntary sputter. "You may give them to me in whichever order you prefer."

His son openly gaped at this absurd demand.

"You want a _thank you_ for last night?" Sirius snorted, full of incredulous disbelief. "You're waiting on a ' _sorry_ '? Well, here's one—I'm sorry you _caught me_. It's the _only_ thing I'm sorry for."

The sarcasm had no effect on Mr. Black—who continued to watch the seated young man, with the expectation of a snake outside a mouse hole.

"And how do you think that came about?"

His voice was silky smooth now, but the cold gray eyes glittered, hard and unrelenting. Sirius stared up into them—momentarily forgetting his anger, he was so taken off-guard by this question.

"W-what?"

" _How_ is it that I caught you, Sirius?" Orion reiterated the question, tersely. "I would've thought that would be the _first_ thing you'd ask, considering the unusual circumstances. But _apparently_ you haven't even considered the question."

His son stared at him, alarmed to realize that—Orion was right. He had been up most of the night staring at the ceiling—and how his father had figured it out hadn't crossed his mind once. It was like the second he'd stepped in the room he'd known the wily old bastard would sniff him out—a bloodhound for his son's trouble-making.

It hadn't occurred to him there was no real rational explanation for it.

"Well—it was—" He hesitated, suddenly disoriented by the sharp turn. "It was—the girl, obviously—"

"The girl?" Orion laughed, coldly. "The girl told me _nothing_. When I asked her which gentlemen had dropped that flask she was holding, and if I could do her the service of returning it on her behalf, she looked _petrified_ —I practically had to pry it out of her hands."

Sirius went pale. Orion put his hands behind his back again and resumed his frenetic pacing.

"I have no idea how she ended up with that object. I can only assume it was ineptitude on your part, a botched attempt at flirtation—" Sirius's cheeks flushed. "—But I was onto you _well_ before I got the proof from her. And do you know why?"

Orion stopped and turned to him, waiting for an answer. Sirius didn't give one. He only looked up at his father, now towering over him.

"It's simple, really." He loomed over his son. " _They_ knew you were coming."

The scant remaining color in Sirius's face drained away.

"Oh, yes. The men you came here to spy on were _quite_ prepared," Orion said, contemptuously—his son's eyes grew wide, making him look much younger than his twenty years. "They were _expecting_ you, in fact—I was told that a pair of imposters might turn up, and to keep a sharp eye out. It didn't take long, once I knew what I was looking for, to see one of them was you."

His son's eyes flashed with alarm—he turned in his seat towards his father, pacing up and down with a martial gait.

"Of course, your friend the Auror was a bit quicker on the uptake. I assume that's why he ordered you to stand down…an order you were completely _disregarding_ when I stumbled upon you, naturally."

Sirius swallowed—his mouth felt dry.

"So, as far as the expectation of gratitude from _my son_ is concerned—" Mr. Black drawled, scornfully and he turned once more to stare his son straight in the eye. "—I think it should be fairly obvious why I believe I'm owed that courtesy—after all, I did save his worthless hide from barreling headlong into a _trap_."

Sirius looked up at him—in a rare moment of stunned silence. Orion's eyes boring into his. His father was waiting for satisfaction—to be pried forcibly from his lips, if necessary. The younger wizard fixed his face into the same cool blank, mask.

When he looked into that face, it was easy for Sirius to ignore all the truth of what he had heard—and embrace that old feeling—the unfairness of being denied what he wanted from _this_ man, the great stonewaller of his childhood, law and order personified.

"If you _really_ want my gratitude," he said, quietly, at last. "You'll tell me what you heard them say."

The sheer audacity of this demand took Mr. Black by surprise for only a moment. His eyes narrowed into slits.

"Do you think _that_ is a wise course for you to take with me, just now?"

Whether his son did or not—he was willing to try, wisdom be damned.

"So you _did_ get the information, then," Sirius pressed—recklessly. "The message—that Rabastan Lestrange passed on to one of the other Death Eaters—you heard it—you probably figured out what the coded bit was, too—you're not stupid."

"Your confidence in my intellect is flattering," Orion shot back, coldly—but Sirius, thrumming with manic energy, didn't seem to have heard him.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

Mr. Black raised an eyebrow—then marched back around the desk and sat down, face placid again. He steepled his fingers on the table-top. Sirius spun around in his chair and gripped the corners of the desk.

"It would be… _unwise_ for you to continue on your present course, Sirius."

"Just tell me what he said." His father remained unmoved, eyes fixed on the boy across from him with unnerving resolve. Sirius let out a growl of frustration. "Come on, Dad—you know I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't _really_ important."

Mr. Black studied him for a moment—his son recognized the hard, shrewd look in the older man's eyes—he was thinking.

Orion cleared his throat and raised one hand to rest under his chin—the fixed expression on his face hardened.

"I do not recall _ever_ giving you permission to use that familiarity."

This cold non-sequitur hit Sirius with the force of a slap. For a moment, he stared at his father in wondering incomprehension, not sure what to say.

"What are you talking about?"

Mr. Black separated his hands and laid them flat on the desk.

"That _insolent word_ you insist upon using as a form of address." Orion stood up, punctuating each syllable with his prickling disdain. "I never gave you leave to call me that—it's one of your many impertinences I've allowed go on for far too long." He drew himself up, towering over his son, frozen like a cornered rabbit. "From now on, you will address me as 'father' or 'sir' at all times, is that understood?"

The imperious pronouncement had the desired effect—Sirius was actually taken aback. For a moment he stared at his father in stunned disbelief. Unexpectedly, he was stung.

He quickly rallied, though. He raised up his shoulders in a shrug of supreme indifference.

"If that's what you want—fine. Makes no difference to me," he said, cooly, tapping his wand against the chair. He leaned back and crossed his arms in insolent repose. "But—for the record, 'dad' is _meant_ to be a term of _affection_."

The middle-aged wizard laughed—a single, mocking _'ha!'_ that set his son's teeth on edge.

"A term of affection?" Orion repeated, scathingly. "Have I _ever_ indicated, in either word or deed, that your _affection_ was something I desired? Having known me for twenty years—would you say that _affection_ has played a large role in our relationship up until now?"

Sirius, utterly stone-faced, considered this question.

"Not really, no," he answered, airily, after a moment of mock-consideration. "I would say, overall, it's played a _minimal_ role in the proceedings."

Orion curled his lip.

"Well, then—why not look to our history, before saddling your father with undesired endearments?" Mr. Black's son turned an ugly shade of red. "If I _wanted_ your affection, I'd ask for it. As it is, I _don't_ —the only thing I want from _you_ is _respect_."

"Right now you don't have _either_!"

A long, chilly silence between them followed these words, broken only by the ticking of the carriage clock on the study's mantle.

Sirius looked over at it. It was not quite ten o'clock. Less than an hour back in this miserable house, and he already felt like he'd aged fifteen lifetimes.

 _I can't stand this place—or him._

He stood up, pushing the chair out roughly and—making no move to pick up either the stack of books still lying on the carpet or the sack of gold on the desk—he marched over to the door, grabbed the doorknob and pulled.

It didn't budge.

The same petulant urge he had felt when he tried to walk out the front door less than an hour earlier seized him, and Sirius tugged once more, knowing full well that the door was shut tight, and would remain so until Orion saw fit to open it.

Fifteen seconds of fruitless pulling was all he could take.

"I'm going now," he muttered, still facing the door. "So you can unlock this."

"You'll leave when I dismiss you—not before," a silky voice from behind him said, briskly. Livid, Sirius spun on his heel. "And you'll take the items and instructions I've given you when you do."

"Like _hell_ I will!" he exclaimed. "Open the damn door."

Mr. Black rose from his desk. He no longer wore the expression of controlled placidity—indeed, he was just as angry as his son, though the controlled fury that marked the same features on his lined face made him far more intimidating that his young son.

"Do I need to remind you of the reprieve I offered—that you refused to take?" Orion sneered. "Let this be a lesson for you: never start something with _me_ you're not prepared to _finish_."

His son marched back across the room, wand in his hand, face blazing with hot-blooded, youthful anger. Orion's eyes flicked from the ebony instrument up to Sirius's face.

"What the hell is there to left to finish between us?" he growled, eye-to-eye with his father. " _You_ refuse to give me the message, _I_ refuse to apologize for trying to get it. It's a classic impasse—nothing more to say."

"There's _plenty_ more to say—now _sit back down_."

He flung himself back in the chair with a huff—for all his impulsiveness, he was level-headed enough to realize that he would not be leaving this room until he was told to do so.

More dignified, Mr. Black sank back down into his own high-backed chair. He folded his hands together and set them on the desk—all business.

"I see _now_ why you were so eager for our audience this morning. _You_ thought you were going to ply me for information," Orion observed, his voice cutting. Sirius snorted and crossed his arms. "So, not only is my son a _spy_ , he's one so _incompetent_ he has to ask his father to cover for his _blunders_."

Sirius rounded on him, fiercely.

"I wouldn't have to ask you if you hadn't _interfered_ —"

"—I thought I made my feelings about _spying_ for that Muggle-lover you report to _quite plain_ ," Mr. Black cut him off, coldly. "If he wants to send his agents into our midst, that's his affair—but I have no intention of assisting them in their efforts, even if they do happen to be my _offspring_. I am not going to be _used_ by that man—or anyone else."

The boy—for slouching down, Orion could think of nothing but the unruly child he had been, never mind that it was definitely a man sitting across from him—let out a bark of a mirthless laughter.

"Not going to be _used_? _Really_?" Sirius repeated, and then he sat up, a look of undisguised contempt dancing across his face. "You sure didn't seem to mind much last night, when _Lucius Malfoy_ was the one using you."

Mr. Black's face froze. Sirius, seeing an opening, went on the offensive.

"Generous thing, don't you think—Abraxas Malfoy offering to host the entire Black clan for your father's birthday? A last minute soirée from a wizard as famously tight-fisted as him—well, it does beg the question of _why,_ doesn't it? _"_

Orion's stared at him, stone-faced.

"What are you implying?"

Sirius offered a casual shrug.

"Only that his Death Eater son realized it would be prudent to fill the manor with respectable witches and wizards—more people would provide some nice cover for his little game of Chinese whispers, see?" Sirius's smile was uncharacteristically grim. "And since _dear_ Narcissa's family had a big to-do that day _anyway…_ well, you can guess the rest."

He took a vindictive pleasure at the disquiet that flickered across his father's face.

"And your point is—"

"—That Lucius Malfoy saw an opportunity with the in-laws and he took advantage. He used you—in fact, he used _your entire family_."

If Mr. Black had been, at first, surprised by these accusations—he very quickly schooled his face to hide it, put the mask back on, and so, looking across the desk at him, his son was left to wonder. _Had_ he been surprised? Had he _really_ not known—or was he play-acting dumb to save face? One could never tell with him—there was a fine line between Orion's willful blindness and his _cunning._

If Sirius's father hadn't known the Black family had figured into Lucius's plans, he had certainly adjusted to the idea with alacrity. He was now considering his son with a newfound sense of gravity.

"The motivations you ascribe to your cousin's husband are—not absurd," he admitted, after a long while. "I would not be shocked if they turned out to be true."

Sirius laughed, quietly—that was about as close to Orion admitting he might be right as it was going to get.

"You know, it's very telling, the things that do and don't shock you," he said, leaning back in his chair. "You nearly had the _vapors_ last night when you caught me doing a mission for the Order, but you don't bat an eyelash at the thought of Lucius _fucking_ Malfoy staging a Death Eater get-together in the middle of your septuagenarian father's birthday party. It's almost like you aren't surprised."

"So, am I a naive _dupe_ or a willing accomplice, in your eyes?" Orion asked, voice heavy with irony. "I can only be one of the two, after all."

"I think you might be a rare case—" his son returned, his voice cutting. "A willing accomplice who _pretends_ to be a naive dupe to _ease his conscience_."

Sirius saw the telling flash of displeasure in his father's eyes that signaled he'd landed a hit.

"If this intelligence is _so_ important, I wonder at your strategy in _attaining_ it." Mr. Black clenched his jaw, his eyes hard. "What is _insulting_ me supposed to accomplish, precisely?"

His son laughed at this question—and tilted his head, thinking about his answer.

"Well, it's satisfying," Sirius admitted, and he dropped his chair legs back on the floor with a loud _clunk._ Mr. Black remained stoic. "There's no point in trying to _reason_ with you! Nothing I do is going to change your mind—so I might as well tell you what I _really_ think. The truth will set you free, they say—" He glowered up at his father. "—Maybe it'll work on you, get you to unlock the _fucking_ door."

Orion raised both eyebrows, surveying his eldest with what could best be described as mild scorn.

"I'll let you go," Mr. Black said, quietly. "When I'm satisfied you understand why I even called you in the _first place_."

Sirius let out another sigh of frustration and rubbed his temples—God, he was tired. Talking to this man was worse than staring into the sun after a night of binge-drinking in SoHo.

"Please. I _know_ why you called me here," he muttered, sullenly. His father let out a quiet scoffing sound—it raised Sirius's hackles, and he sat up, eyes narrowed into accusatory slits. He had no idea how much like his father he looked, just then. "You're enjoying yourself. You always _loved_ dressing me down in this room. I bet you couldn't wait for a chance to have a go at me in here—just like old times."

Sirius slouched back down, in a pose that unwittingly recalled his school days. Orion had always gotten on him about his poor posture—he could feel the familiar look of paternal disapproval, and it made him want to stick his feet up on the table.

"You vastly overrate the charms of your company—and as for 'old times'—" Mr. Black said, his voice terse. "It gives me _no_ pleasure to recall our shared history in this room."

"So then why are you so hell-bent on _reliving_ it?"

His father didn't reply, but when Sirius raised his eyes—he found something stormy lurking behind Orion's. He was _also_ thinking of that final audience between them.

As the younger man stared across the desk, into the face so like his own—though fixed in an expression of perfectly controlled placidity that Sirius knew he would never be able to master—for the first time in the week since their reunion, it struck him how much older Orion looked at 50 than he had at 47. There was gray at the temples where there had never been, bags under his eyes, and more than any physical sign—there was a heavy, invisible weight on his shoulder that, if it had been there before, his father had never before allowed himself to show it in front of one of his children.

This fight was taking its toll—and Sirius could tell.

To see a weakness from Orion was not giving him the heady rush of satisfaction it should've—instead, he was left with the disquieting sense of having lost something.

It just made him more pissed off, when he got right down to it.

"You know what _really_ gets me about all this?" Sirius asked, breaking the silence between them. "It's not you refusing to give me the information—it's that you won't admit the reason _why_."

A thunder cloud passed over Mr. Black's face.

"You actually have the _effrontery,"_ he hissed. _"The nerve—_ to think _I_ owe _you_ an explanation for why I refuse to—to debase myself in this way?" Orion was full of more righteous indignation than he'd shown up until this point. "You are an _impertinent wretch_ who has no right to demand anything. You _dare_ —"

"—Yeah, I _dare_!" He interrupted—and to Mr. Black's chagrin, son started to laugh. "Debase yourself? How exactly did I ask you to _debase yourself_?" Sirius's face twisted with derision. "You don't want to tell me what those Death Eaters were saying to each other, fine—but spare me all the _pompous posturing,_ like I've wounded your precious _dignity_."

Orion's face went an ugly shade of brick red.

"What, is aiding and abetting Albus Dumbledore a violation of some _sacred principle_ for you?" Sirius continued, incredulously, and he continued, with unexpected ferocity, "Hate to break it to you, but that broom has already flown. You're _already_ working with him."

Orion rose from his chair, slowly—the anger seeping out of him.

"I never asked for _that fool's_ help," Mr. Black sneered, brandishing his wand. "I never asked him to meddle in my family's affairs, and I don't answer to _him_ any more than I do _you_." He pointed one finger—the same one that bore his signet ring—and stabbed it in the air, aggressively. "I am not going to be made a _pawn_ on his _chessboard._ "

"Then you'll be made a pawn for the other side!" Sirius replied, jumping to his feet. "Don't you _get it_ , yet? For God's sake, Lord Voldemort could be staring you straight in the face, and you'd _still_ pretend like this war has _nothing_ to do with you."

His father recoiled in shock—both from the name and the force of Sirius's words, and when his son crossed around the back of the desk, Mr. Black was too surprised by his nerve in doing it to protest.

"I used to think you were just naive about him—but that's not true anymore, and it makes it all _so_ much worse," the young wizard continued, his disgust evident. "You've cottoned on to the fact that Voldemort is a brutal murderer who'd kill us all without a second thought—but you still won't lift a finger to actually _stop_ him or _do_ anything about it."

Mr. Black's face twisted in fury—and his son continued, savagely, looking about the dusty, dark room—and he swept one scornful hand over the sum of his father's life.

"If you thought you could get away with it, you'd spend the rest of the war locked up in this study. I doubt you even care who _wins_ in the end, as long as it's over and you can go back to your comfortable, _narrow_ life full of all the purebloods who share your completely _narrow_ view of the world."

Orion raised his right hand, clenched around his wand, and Sirius unconsciously shut his eyes and flinched from the blow.

But it didn't come.

He opened his eyes again, to find the arm still poised above Mr. Black's head. There was no tension in his forearm, his face was bloodless—the gesture looked posed and feeble.

No—of course he wouldn't—that would have been _doing_ something.

Mr. Black lowered his arm and tossed his wand onto the desk. It landed with an inelegant clatter on the gleaming polished wood and rolled a few inches.

The moment passed—and Sirius's father was himself again.

"So— _this_ is what my son thinks of me." He put his hands behind his back and looked down his elegant nose at the younger man, every inch of him in control once more. "He thinks I'm a spineless coward with no principles."

"I'd throw in 'insufferable snob', too—but yeah, that about sums it up." Sirius's lip curled. "What _are_ your principles, Dad? What do you _actually_ believe in? I've known you my entire life, I'm your son—and _I_ don't even know what you care about. Does _anything_ matter to you?"

Something stirred behind Mr. Black's impassive face—a glimmer, a flinch of pain—and then the shutters behind his eyes went up.

"This _family_ is what matters to me," he said, quietly. "The Black family is what I care about—it is the only star that governs my life."

Mr. Black's son gaped at him—had he _really_ just said that?

"You're incredible. You _actually_ believe that. You think there's some inherent nobility in your bloodline—" Sirius shook his head slowly. "—That the Black family is so special and important the stars themselves _shine_ out of your orifices. That line your father fed you in the nursery—you've bought into it."

"There's nothing to _buy_ into," Mr. Black said, coolly. "And it's not a line. It's the truth."

The utter certainty with which Orion said these words elicited a guffaw from his son—which only aggravated him further.

"I feel compelled to tell you—since no one else will—that there's nothing ' _noble'_ about the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black." Sirius marched back around the desk, picking up the serpent paperweight as he did, he turned on his heel to find his father seething, utterly incensed.

"This family has attained its vast fortune and influence for the simple reason that it is chock full of cunning and ruthless pragmatists—Slytherins to their core—your father chief among them. Arcturus—that great tyrant that sired you—is the Black _par excellence,_ and the only _star_ that governs _your_ life is doing exactly as he says."

He tossed the ivory snake up and down in his hand, carelessly, signifying his contempt.

"Don't you _dare_ speak to me about my father," Orion hissed, grabbing the paperweight out of his son's hand and slamming it down on the desk. "Do you think that makes you a _man_? You're just parroting your mother, you insolent cub."

Bringing up his parents' awful row had been the last thing he wanted to do, except the blood was pounding in his ears, his killer instincts had taken over—it was equivalent for a leap at the throat.

"There is nothing that woman said to you last night that I haven't thought myself, a hundred times," his son shot back, jeeringly. "Even _she_ can be right about _some_ things. You do everything he tells you to. You'd turn spy in a heartbeat, if _Arcturus_ ordered you to do it, and if it were _him_ and not _me_ asking for that information, you'd give it over without a second thought."

The elm wand that Mr. Black had thrown down on the desk vibrated from his anger—Sirius leaned forward, to give the killing blow.

"You've never once stood up to that man. You've bowed and scraped and let your father _bully you_ your entire life, and you can't stand that I refuse to let you do the same to me."

The silence that followed this accusation was the most deafening either man had been party to. Orion, arms still folded behind his back, face frozen—expression glacial—stared into his son's eyes.

"Are you finished?" he asked, quietly.

"Yeah," Sirius replied, curtly. "I'm done."

His father settled himself back into the chair, centering himself. Sirius remained standing, but he felt drained, utterly spent, and even though by all accounts he should have seen himself the victor, he still felt like Orion was somehow—improbably—in control.

"Well, thank you for that. It was…illuminating. At last I understand your true feelings." Mr. Black picked up his wand and toyed with it, thoughtfully. "My path forward is now clear."

There was an ominous, vaguely threatening edge to this statement. The hairs on the back of Sirius's neck prickled.

"Since I _obviously_ don't have your respect," Mr. Black said, silkily. "And I'm determined to get it from you, I shall have to redouble my efforts. I believe instructing you in the duties and responsibilities attached to your station as my heir will be a good starting place for us—" His son went pale. "—And I think I'll start looking to _my_ father as an example in future. _He's_ a man who understands how to garner the respect of his children."

The younger wizard gripped the back of the chair.

"How long do you plan on doing this?" he demanded, all thought of civility or control long past.

Mr. Black had returned to his accounts book, which he was now perusing, leisurely.

"Doing what?" he asked, eyes not straying up from a long column of expense sums. Sirius let out a low growl.

"You know," he snapped, fiercely. "Pretending I'm still your heir, that's what."

"You _are_ still my heir," Orion said casually, dipping his quill in the bottle of red ink and making a neat correction. "If anyone here is pretending, it is you—pretending that you're _not_."

"It's only legally—" Sirius replied, crossing his arms and scowling. "That doesn't—it doesn't _really_ count."

He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as he was his father.

"You will find in the matter of inheritances from entailed estates—" Mr. Black blotted the page with an elegant wave of his wand. "—It is the _only_ way in which it 'counts'."

"I know why you're doing it, and it's not going to work!" Sirius squeezed the edges to the chair and rocked it back and forth, on the verge of throwing it at Orion to get his attention. "It's all just to appease Mum—but the joke's on her, because even if I was _insane_ enough to want back into this damn family, it's _never_ going to happen." Orion glanced up from the page. " _Your father_ thinks I'm a filthy, disgraceful blood-traitor, and _he_ hates my guts."

Sirius's dramatic tone of voice suggested that as far as he was concerned, this feeling was mutual.

"He'll never reinstate me—and you and the rest of the Blacks will follow his lead, as always, so as far as me being your heir is concerned—" He leaned over the desk, voice full of cocky and entirely forced triumph. "This is all just for show. It's a big _bluff_."

Orion turned the page of his accounts books. He was utterly unconcerned by his son's assertions, and had gone back to his old mode of managing Sirius—which was to ignore and condescend in equal measures.

"Maybe. We shall see. Who knows what the future will bring?" Abruptly, he shut the heavy tome and tucked it back in his desk drawer. When he looked up at his son, Mr. Black was calm, though there was a gleam of malice in his eyes. "Your grandfather is an old man—quite feeble, really. He could keel over tomorrow, and then the decision would be wholly mine to make." His smile was smooth as silk. "And _then_ I could present my wife with what she wants _most_ for Christmas—a fully _broken-in_ firstborn son."

Sirius's breath caught in his throat.

"You don't own me!" he shouted, angrily, clenching his fists. "I don't belong to you—I don't belong to _anyone_."

His father stared at him across the desk, face impassive, unmoved.

"You really can't stand it, can you?" Sirius hissed, like an angry cat. "I don't want this—your house, your gold—I don't even want your _name_ , and you cannot comprehend it. You think people should be _queuing out the door_ for a chance to live your life, and it wounds your pride to think your own son doesn't want it. That's why you're doing this, you stubborn bastard—it tears you up inside, that I have a mind of my own!"

Orion chuckled.

"You still have a taste for high melodrama, I see!" Mr. Black observed, with a sneer. "And for histrionic displays of temper. By Salazar, you _are_ your mother's son!"

Sirius flushed pink.

"Hysterical, high-strung, convinced of your own rightness in _everything_ —" Orion stabbed his quill in the air to punctuate each point. "Prone to throwing colossal _tantrums_ when you don't get your own way—you're _just like her_. The two of you deserve each other—for Christmas I should stick you on a deserted island with that woman, then I might actually get some peace."

"Yeah, and with _us_ out of the way, maybe you'll actually pay attention to your _other_ son, for once."

These—more than any of the insults, the slights, the screaming and carrying on that he had been forced to endure—stunned Orion.

"It's the great irony, you know," Sirius continued, harshly, and he paced up and down in front of the desk. "You wasted _years_ hounding me, trying to get me in line—never leaving me alone, which is all I wanted, and meanwhile you had a son waiting in the wings—one who actually _wanted_ your attention—and you completely ignored _him_."

Orion's shock gave way to fresh anger.

"I—I do _not_ ignore your brother!" he exclaimed, hotly. For once he didn't sound elegant or controlled.

"Oh, _please_ —yes, you do!" Sirius stopped his pacing and turned round. He had never seen Orion so surprised—for this attack had come from an unexpected quarter. "He almost _died_ last week, and you haven't come to see him _once_ since he's been in my flat."

"I see my son _every_ night at dinner," Mr. Black sputtered, furiously. "I speak to him _every_ day."

There was an unusual amount of defensiveness in his voice, and Sirius seized upon it at once.

"Not one-on-one—and not about anything that _matters_." Sirius said, with a dismissive snort. "Have you talked to him about anything that's happened? Have you told him you're proud of him? You should consider it—you see, unlike me, Regulus actually _cares_ what you think."

He could see the sting of the insult, for once—and he relished it.

"Of course, maybe you aren't proud," he continued, coldly. "Maybe this is all a big bother to you—just a _nuisance_. It wouldn't be the first time."

Every other attack Mr. Black had been prepared for—but this stricture against his treatment of his younger son had come out of seemingly nowhere, and he was blindsided by it. Of course, being a Black—he quickly rallied.

"You are in no position to be _holding court_ on failing one's family," Orion said, in a deadly soft voice. "Who are _you_ to lecture me about how I treat my son? You've been gone from this house for three years."

"I was around for fifteen before that!" his son snapped back. "He hangs on your every word, Dad. Reg is _desperate_ for your approval—and he _wants_ this life. Why bother lecturing me, when you have him? He _wants_ to hear it from you—"

"—But he doesn't _need_ it!" Orion said, furiously. "Regulus understands his duty, he behaves himself, he acts like a proper son—he knows his place. You are not the same—you never have been. If I'm not having constant audiences with your younger brother, it's only because he doesn't demand it of me."

"He doesn't demand _anything_ of you," Sirius snapped back, waspishly. "He never talks out of turn, he never complains—a very convenient son, and like any good Slytherin, you take full advantage."

"That is absurd—"

"Regulus thinks that you've passed him over in your will because you have no confidence in him. Do you know that?" Sirius laughed, coldly. "'Course, you're only doing refusing to change it to punish _me_ , but he doesn't see it that way. It wounds him, the poor idiot."

Orion dropped his quill onto the desk—through his still-visible anger, the man looked shaken.

"Your brother…confided this in you, did he?"

"He didn't need to. I have eyes in my head—I know the one thing he wants more than anything in the world," Sirius replied, bluntly. "It's how he got mixed up with the Death Eaters in the first place—yet another misguided attempt to _please_ the two of you.

" _He's_ probably spied for _them_ , you know. Maybe you should yell at him next—it would give him a thrill. That's probably why he joined up—he'd run out of other ideas on how to get your attention, short of dying—but if we've learned anything from the last week, it's that not even _that_ can get you to look up from the paper."

They both knew that this was the final insult.

Orion closed his eyes and breathed in, very slowly.

"I have taken all I can bear from you this morning," he said, in an even voice. "I can see you have no intention of thanking me for preventing you from killing yourself last night, and you aren't sorry in the least for what you did. I am not going to beg for an apology or gratitude—but I am also not going to sit here and listen to you sanctimoniously blame _me_ for everything that has gone wrong in this family, while you take no responsibility for your own actions."

Orion pointed his wand at the door to the study—it burst open, hitting the wall with a bang. Sirius flinched at the noise, but didn't take his eyes off his father.

Mr. Black's eyes swept over the scene—the books of family letters scattered haphazardly on the floor, the shopping lists crumpled next to them, the sack of gold half-hanging off the corner. A wave of wand, and everything was stacked and ordered neatly on his desk again—the books neatly tied together and in a drawstring sack.

His son stared at the items, sullenly.

"You will take these books back to your flat—you and your brother can start going over them this afternoon—" Sirius opened his mouth to protest again, but Orion was too quick for him. "— _After_ you start in on your shopping. You have four days to do it, so I'll expect you to have at _least_ a quarter of those gifts purchased and in your flat by supper this evening."

Sirius nearly let out a violent exclamation at this injustice.

"And if I don't?" he asked, through gritted teeth.

"Then I'll be forced to tell your mother that handsome creature she was _fawning_ over last night was her handsome _son_ ," he replied, sleekly. The younger wizard grabbed the sack of gold, shoved the papers in his pocket cursing under his breath. "If you thought _this_ audience was bad, imagine one with her."

"It's so low, holding her over me," Sirius muttered, his voice sulky. He levitated the stack of heavy books over to himself—muttered a charm to make them feather light, and slung it over his shoulder. "Anything _else—sir_?"

"Yes." His father stood up and inspected his elder son's appearance—his cold eyes lingered on the wrinkled cuffs of his robes. "You'll be spending Christmas Day with your family. Pick yourself up new dress robes—it's a formal occasion, and I expect you to be properly attired."

Sirius pulled a face—both at the idea of 'dressing up' for a Christmas turkey in his flat, of all places, and yet another tedious shopping excursion.

"Why would I buy dress robes for one night? I'm never going to wear them again." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I don't _do_ formal engagements."

"Oh, I don't know about that," His father said, circumspectly. "I have a feeling you have _many_ formal engagements in your future. Better to be prepared, I always say."

His son glowered at him—if he'd been in his Animagus form, he'd have growled.

"Am I spending my own money on this, or are these dress robes I don't want or need supposed to be an early Christmas present?"

"You're a grown man—I think you're old enough to buy your own clothing," Mr. Black said, haughtily—and gave Sirius another shrewd look. "And while we're on the subject of _my_ gold—I will expect fully itemized receipts of everything you purchase with it. I want evert galleon accounted for."

His son's face twisted into a grimace.

"What—do you think I plan to skim off the top?" Insulted, Sirius pulled the bag of gold out and dangled it in front of him, as if it was diseased. "I would've thought by now I'd made it pretty clear what I think of _your family's_ gold."

"It's not so clear to me," Orion said—eyes glittering with contempt. "After all, you didn't seem to mind collecting a hefty sum of 'my family's gold' two years ago, when your uncle died."

Sirius let go of the draw string of the bag and the books dropped to the floor.

"How the hell do you—are you spying on my _bank transactions_ , now?"

"Of course not, you ignoramus," Mr. Black sneered. "Alphard was a Black—it was handled through the family's solicitor, as you know, having been the beneficiary of that _not insubstantial_ bequest. I know it's your uncle's gold that you've been living on, which is why I find your preening about your so-called 'independence' from this family more than a little mendacious." He smiled, mockingly. "You've been sponging off of the Blacks for _years_."

"That was Uncle Alphard's money—"

"—And where do you think it came from?" Orion shot back, his tone withering. "That gold didn't materialize from thin air, boy. Alphard may have written some trifling travelogues and diverting novellas that made him a tidy profit, but he inherited the starting capital from his father—just like every other Black."

But Sirius had cottoned onto the larger point—he stared up at his father, incredulous and wide-eyed.

"Is _that_ why he's been removed from the tree?" he asked, in stunned disbelief. "Mum blasted her own brother off because he had the nerve to _leave me money_?"

"I see you found something to occupy yourself with," Orion said, incapable of hiding the chilly edge in his voice. "Taking an interest in family heraldry, at last?"

"Just checking to make sure Mother dearest did her job," Sirius replied, jeeringly. "Got to say, it was a real mood-booster, to not have to see _my_ name connected to _yours_ anymore."

"I'm sure it gave you solace. You always _did_ enjoy your little little flights of fancy." Mr. Black picked up the snake paperweight—it's ruby eyes seemed to glitter in the dim light of the study. It looked alive—and just like the Sirius of old, the young man felt as though the creature was laughing at him. "You _still_ like to play pretend."

"I am not pretending anything," Sirius said, fiercely. His father laughed—the mocking sound echoed in the tall ceiling of the room.

"Please—of course you are. You think you can make yourself over in whatever image you see fit, be whatever you want." Mr. Black sneered coldly at this absurdity. "Well, as your sire, allow me to disabuse you of that inane notion, here and now, with the simple truth."

Sirius stepped up to the desk, jaw squared—and leaned close. His father stood up, met his eyes—an unusual amount of steel in them.

"You are what you are. And _you_ —" he said, words icy and implacable. "—Are a _Black_ and my _son_. You will _never_ be anything else."

Sirius recoiled, as if he'd been burned. Orion's eyes narrowed into serpentine slits.

"I intend to drill this lesson into your head—every day for the rest of my life, if necessary—until I'm certain you won't ever forget it again." His eyes and face hardened. "Resign yourself—I _am_ your father, I have _been_ your father since the day you were born, and I will _be_ your father until I take my last miserable breath on this _earth_."

"May that day come _swiftly_."

This cold, bloodless oath elicited no discernible reaction from Mr. Black. He stared, unblinking, into his son's eyes, utterly unmoved by the look of loathing he found there.

He was the one to break the gaze. Sirius's wish for his eminent demise went unanswered and unacknowledged. It was of no consequence—did not change the facts one jot. Sirius realized, with an uncomfortable jolt, that he could've said he hated Orion to his face, and it would not have altered his father's course of action.

Once he made a decision, it was final.

Mr. Black pulled out his gold watch—attached to a fine filagree chain—from the inside of his robes and checked the time, with the casual air of any other audience.

"You ought to get a move on." He looked up—Sirius had still not picked up the bundle he had dropped on the floor. There was nothing left to say—far too much had been said, three years or more of unspoken ugliness unleashed in a single conversation—and yet the young man, trembling with anger, was still not ready to surrender the last word. "I'm sure you have your own shopping to do, in addition to mine and Regulus's."

Orion Black surveyed his son, calmly. The young Black scion schooled his expression to match his father's—though he was less capable of hiding the turbulence lurking behind his stormy gray eyes.

"No, I don't," Sirius said, his voice clipped. "I—finished my shopping ages ago."

"Of course, that was before you knew you would be celebrating with _us_ —your family," Mr. Black replied, casually. "I'm sure it's occurred to you have _your own_ gifts. I took the liberty of providing you with a few helpful suggestions, should you be at a loss for what is…appropriate."

Hands trembling with rage, he dug around in the pocket of his robes and fished out Orion's list. Sirius's eyes scanned it for a minute, and his lip turned up in an ugly smile.

"I see you've only given me ideas for what to get Mum and Reg," he remarked, flatly, glancing up from the paper. His expression was deeply sarcastic. "What's the matter—don't _you_ want anything?"

Orion rolled his eyes and returned his son's sarcastic smile with malicious pleasure.

"Right now all I want is for you to get out of my sight."

"Done." Sirius clenched his fist around the parchment and shoved it back in his bag. "In fact, I can I do you one better—I'll get out of your _life._ "

His father refused to rise to this bait. The steady look he wore was unmistakably paternal in origin—the _pater familias_ , absolutely certain in his ironclad grip—and the fact that Orion dared look at him that way, as if nothing had ever changed, as if he, Sirius, was still the twelve-year-old boy caught sneaking out his bedroom window over the summer holidays—that made his son more angry than anything else.

He was burning up with resentment, Rabastan's information—his responsibilities to the Order, to Dumbledore, to James and Lily—everything forgotten in the wake of how much, in this moment, he despised everything about the man in front of him.

 _I'll never be free of him._

"I will see you at dinner," Mr. Black replied, his voice serene. "Have a productive day. I look forward to inspecting the fruits of your efforts."

Orion's son clenched his fists, hands trembling, his face absolutely murderous—obviously on the verge of shouting a phrase akin to 'I'll get you for this!'—except he wouldn't give Mr. Black the satisfaction of humiliating himself further, and he grabbed the books off the floor. Throwing one last look of loathing in the direction of the desk, Sirius turned on his heel and marched out of the open door, slamming the door behind him so hard that plaster dust fell from the ceiling onto the Persian rug.

For several minutes, Mr. Black sat alone in the study, not moving, hand still clutching the carved snake. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place—the house his elder son called a mausoleum—was in this moment as quiet as tomb.

His shoulders remained rigid, his face as implacable as a marble bust.

Then, unexpectedly, the ironclad control that had taken a lifetime of discipline to cultivate collapsed in on itself like a dying star, Orion Black reared back his arm—and for the second time in twelve hours hurled an object into the fireplace.

The ivory snake shattered against the wall with a magnificent crash. He had missed the fireplace entirely—overshooting it in favor of the mantle.

The silence that followed this was deafening. Orion stared at the product of his anger, for a moment disassociated, not knowing how he'd gotten to this point—and he let out a shuddering gasp and clutched at his chest. He let out a wheezing, painful noise, bent over the desk. He had never been more grateful to be alone in his life.

After a full minute of this the gasping quieted, and Orion—tired and drawn, careworn in every respect—circled around his desk and approached the mess he had just made in a fit of temper that he (unlike his son) at least was ashamed enough of to hide from his family. Mr. Black stared at the spot on the floor where the paperweight lay in hundreds of pieces.

" _Reparo_ ," Orion murmured, quietly, pointing his wand at the floor.

The shards of the ivory snake shuddered, then flew back together. He bent over and picked it up. The little snake's red eyes glittered up at him.

It really did look alive.

Orion crossed back behind his desk—his personal sanctuary—and slumped into the chair. He ran a hand through his graying hair and leaned back staring at the ceiling and the night sky painstakingly painted above his head.

His eyes found it at once. The brightest star in the heavens twinkled down—as bold and insolent as the boy who shared its name.

It was with a heavy sight that he tore his eyes from it and looked back down. Orion pulled open the lowest desk drawer of his desk, and after digging for a moment, he found out what he was looking for. Taking great care—for the grass was cracked down the middle—he gently pulled the tarnished silver frame from where it had been banished, blowing the dust off the front and examining the picture behind it.

It was a family portrait. A handsome couple and their two children—boys, close in age. Neither could've been older than ten. The photographer had had a gift for symmetry, and when he had posed this family, he had framed it so neatly it was as if they really were more one whole than four parts.

His eyes traced each face. Young Regulus looked like he was about to sneeze, and was holding it in for the sake of his dignity. The echo of Walburga was visibly restraining the shoulder of her elder son, who—if memory served—had shot out of the frame the second this had been taken. Even then Sirius had been full of energy, had never wanted to sit still. The father and husband standing in the back appeared to have noticed none of this. He was staring into the camera, waiting for the dratted man behind it to tell them he'd gotten the damn picture so they could go home and he could get some peace, at last.

Only a decade gone—and to him, the image, the people in the photograph—might as well have been from another life.

Mr. Black set the silver picture frame face-down on the desk and stood up. His lined face was grim, marked with another quality unusual to him.

Resolve.

He crossed to the coat rack, where his cloak hung—the same velvet trimmed black he'd been wearing for over two decades. He put it on, and fastening the front, opened the door to his study and strode out the door.

Like his son, he did not look back.

* * *

 **And we're back for Part II! Thank you all for your comments and well wishes. I really enjoy your feedback-it means a lot. My work schedule has sadly slowed down my writing, but I'm well into part two of this story. I hope you'll keep reading and enjoying! I have some kind of exciting news...**

 **'In the Black' has been nominated in the 2018 Marauder Medals Shrieking Shack Society contest in the category of Best Sirius Characterization. As a favor to me and a thank you for writing over 200K words of Black family shenanigans, would really appreciate if you could take five minutes to VOTE. Will provide the link in my profile momentarily. Thank you so much!**


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

 _"'_ _Black family tradition decreed that the house was handed down the direct line, to the next male with the name of 'Black.' Sirius was the very last of the line as his younger brother, Regulus, predeceased him and both were childless. While his will makes it perfectly plain that he wants you to have the house, it is nevertheless possible that some spell or enchantment has been set upon the place to ensure that it cannot be owned by anyone other than a pureblood.'"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

"Where's my brother?"

Lily Potter—sitting, legs crossed on the floor of Sirius's living room, looked up from the lump of wool she was prodding with her wand and smiled. She had been trying to turn the ball of now hopelessly tangled yarn into a baby bonnet for over an hour, and as she was not making much headway, any distraction was welcome.

At the sight she found when she looked up, her smile widened, and her green eyes twinkled with mischief. Sirius's younger brother was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, still wearing his silver pajamas, green dressing gown and a surly expression she instantly recognized.

It was the one Sirius always wore when he hadn't gotten enough 'beauty rest'.

"He left early this morning. Had to…meet someone, I think." Lily blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and stood up, checking her watch as she did. It was past ten. "I was wondering when I was going to see you. Did you sleep well?"

"Did he say when he'd be back?" Regulus asked, ignoring her polite question in favor of a haughty glare. Lily brushed imaginary dust off of her jeans and walked over to the table where _Witch Weekly—_ with its featured household charm of the month article—lay open.

"Sometime this afternoon." She looked down at the article to check for the forth time that she had the wand movement right—if she, Flitwick's favorite student, couldn't get this stupid knitting charm to work, the young wife was resolved on writing the magazine a strongly-worded letter. "Remus is coming at noon to relieve me—he'll keep you company until Sirius returns."

"I see."

Regulus marched over to the sofa, managing to look quite haughty and disdainful in spite of his sleep-tousled hair sticking up a bit in the back.

Though…just to look at the dark circles around his eyes, Lily guessed he hadn't slept much the night before.

"Are you hungry?" The steak and kidney pie that she'd made the previous day for him and James was still sitting forlornly on the coffee table—Regulus pulled his feet up on the sofa and glared at it, as if the sight was a personal affront to him. "I put a cooling charm on that—it's still good. Do you want me to heat it up?"

Regulus's stomach gurgled.

"I'm fine," he said, coldly, picking up a heavy black book next to the pie. "I'll have Kreacher fix me something."

He gave her one last haughty glance over the page—as though she were a servant beneath his notice—then buried his face in the book. Lily's smile wavered a bit, but she forced herself to keep the polite tone of voice.

"Suit yourself," she said, cheerfully.

Regulus scooted around on the couch very deliberately so as to be facing away from her. She sighed and flopped back down on the floor next to her knitting needles and yarn. As soon as she was confident he wasn't watching her, Lily rolled her eyes.

She was determined to be pleasant and polite to the Blacks, no matter how rude or cold they were to her. Her reasons were twofold: Professor Dumbledore had impressed upon her the importance of making Regulus and his parents feel comfortable—but more personally, Lily had a stubborn streak that was always roused by challenge.

The young mother-to-be twirled her willow wand around the spool.

She was going to kill them with kindness. When Lily had confided her plan to Sirius, he had flatly informed her that if it worked, he would be happy to help her hide the bodies. His sarcasm had only spurred her on more—there was something so satisfying about proving Sirius Black wrong.

The needles rose up feebly for a moment before flopping back down. She pressed a hand over the stomach that was still flat and sighed.

 _At least I have eight months to get this right._

"What time did Sirius get back last night?"

Lily glanced up from the wool, now tying itself into intricate, useless knots. Regulus was evidently making about as much progress as she was on his project, for the black book lay open and abandoned at his side.

"A little past two," she replied, evenly. "You were already in bed."

He chewed his lip. She had noticed over the course of the week that he had a habit of doing it when he was nervous.

"How did he—" Regulus faltered. "I mean, did it seem as though…was he…"

He tugged at a stray frayed edge of the cushion and trailed off, awkwardly. Lily raised both eyebrows. Evidently indirectness and emotional constipation ran in the family.

"Sirius wasn't exactly…in high spirits when he got in," Lily said, wryly. "But he wasn't hurt."

Regulus looked unsurprised by this news—though he hid it well. He had a much better poker face than his brother, who always wore his emotions on his sleeve.

"So whatever he was—his _mission_." Regulus carefully modulated his voice to be as neutral as possible. "It…didn't come off?"

The miserable expression on Padfoot's fact flashed through Lily's mind, and she hesitated, wondering, in the circumstances, what she should say. She knew Sirius wouldn't thank her for telling Regulus anything about his mission for the Order without running it by him first, and the two of them really needed to work things out on their own.

"I don't know the particulars," she said, settling on an honest answer. "You should ask him your—"

" _Sirius Orion_!"

A loud cry emanating from the direction of the kitchen cut Lily off. She and Regulus both turned in unison—they didn't have to wait long for the source of this imperious summons to appear at the doorway.

Mrs. Black was wearing her elegant ermine cloak over a royal blue day gown, along with her customary expression of haughty disdain. The house-elf Kreacher stood faithfully at her side, clutching a basket brimming with pastries, fruit and cold meats.

The elf made an instant beeline for Regulus with his basket of goodies, depositing the food—easily enough to feed a family of four—in easy reach of his young charge. His mistress's swept over the scene before her, lingering for a fraction of a section on the half-eaten pie and then the young woman sitting Indian-style on the floor.

Lily scrambled to her feet. Despite a week of watch duty, she had not yet gotten used to the older witch's sudden dramatic entrances.

"Mrs. Black—good morning," she said, a tad too brightly. Her hand involuntarily moved to smooth out her unwashed hair, for Sirius's mother was a master of making one feel self-conscious. "We—weren't expecting you."

The Black matriarch gave Lily a single scathing once-over—just enough to indicate clearly that she believed the younger witch was beneath her notice—before marching over to her second born son.

Lily reminded herself of her vow and repressed another aggravated sigh.

"Good morning, Mother," Regulus murmured, dutifully, though he made no move to stand.

"Where is your brother?" Walburga demanded, without preamble. Regulus scrunched up his shoulders and shrugged—and at this action, which had a tad more attitude than was typical, she narrowed her eyes, taking in his appearance. "And why aren't you dressed yet? It's past mid-morning, for goodness' sake."

"What does it matter when I get dressed?" Regulus muttered, sullenly, sticking his face back in his book. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"I do not want you lolly-gagging half the day away in your sleep things, Regulus Arcturus," Mrs. Black scolded him—then took in the dark circles around his eyes with a sharp, maternal eye. "Are you feeling ill? You look drawn."

"I didn't sleep well," he admitted, still staring at the page, his eyes unmoving.

She reached over and without warning and grabbed his chin, pulling it this way and that in motherly inspection. Unlike Sirius, Mrs. Black's younger son submitted without argument—though when he met Lily's eyes over his mother's shoulder, he turned a little red in embarrassment.

"Why didn't you sleep?" she asked, absently. "I suppose you were up half the night playing _Exploding Snap_ with your brother."

Lily's mouth twitched as Regulus rolled his eyes in the mildest fashion

"We haven't done that since we were children, Mother."

She let out a little snort of disbelief.

"I wasn't aware you _weren't_ children," she said, and she at last let go of his chin—deeming the inspection a success. "If you don't know where he _is,_ I don't suppose you know when he'll return, either."

The red-head loudly cleared her throat.

"Sirius said he'd be back this afternoon, Mrs. Black," Lily said, in a helpful, slightly elevated voice. "He had an appointment early."

Slowly, Mrs. Black turned towards Mrs. Potter—who practically beamed with politeness. The older woman's response to this unsolicited information—delivered in tones that suggested the girl thought she might be hard of hearing—could be at best described as 'frosty'.

"I was just going to make a pot of tea for Regulus and myself." Lily bent down and swept the tangled mess of yarn and knitting needles into her arms. "Would you like a cup?"

Walburga kept staring. Before Lily had met this woman, she had not known how much cool disdain could be leveled in a single look.

 _She can't give me the silent treatment forever,_ Lily thought, forcing herself not to blink. Sirius had told her that his parents viewed it as a sign of weakness—Lily had not been able to tell if he was joking, so she was trying to avoid it when speaking to his mother, just in case it was true.

Sirius was full of these ridiculous stories about things Orion and Walburga had done and said—she thought he was probably exaggerating, trying to put her off of her attempts to thaw the ice. Remus was content to take Padfoot's advice and avoid conversation as much as possible in the flat, but Lily thought that was wanted, and she was not inclined to give them their way. The stories of their Victorian manners and outrageous snobbery, far from putting her off, had the opposite effect of what her friend intended.

The more she learned of the Blacks, the more Lily found them almost… _too_ absurd to be offended by.

"I'll just—go and do that, then," the younger witch said, very aware that her smile probably looked like a grimace at this point. "You take cream? Sugar?"

She looked to Regulus, who gave her a barely perceptible nod behind his mother's back. Grateful, Lily winked at him—taking a little undue pleasure in the flash of annoyance in Mrs. Black's eyes at this impertinence, for she had to take her victories where she could get them—and hurried into the kitchen, pointedly closing the door behind her.

As soon as they were alone, Mrs. Black dropped her austere facade. She looked nearly as tired as Regulus—and distracted. Her youngest took a bite out of one of the pears from the basket and studied her face.

"How was grandfather's birthday?"

"Hm?" His mother looked back at him. He was watching her with one of his fixed, blank looks that she had once erroneously thought were evidence of his slowness. "Oh—it was…fine. I'll tell you all about it at dinner tonight, when your brother is around. I don't want to bore you by repeating myself."

"Have you been paying calls, Mother?" He had noticed she was wearing a particularly fine gown that she usually reserved for social occasions.

"I had _tea_ with your Aunt Lucretia this morning," Mrs. Black said, her voice taking on a tinge of irritation at the statement of this fact. She suddenly looked rather put-out and distracted.

"How was she?"

Regulus approached this question with polite caution. Lucretia was his mother's oldest friend, in addition to being her second cousin and sister-in-law, but he sometimes got the impression that his aunt, with her flippant manners and teasing ways, _annoyed_ Walburga more than anything else. Orion also had little patience for his only sister, even on the best of days, and Sirius had always thought her a meddling gossip.

"She's—the same as ever. Full of flights of fancy." Mrs. Black pursed her lips. "Today, she was on a tear about—the ludicrous things young people do these days when they're courting. I couldn't _believe_ the things she told me—nonsense about going out together with no chaperones, carrying on in public places. I'm sure not a word of it was true."

Regulus's brown eyes widened at _this_ of all abrupt turns in the conversation. Embarrassed, he busied himself with one of the croissants in the basket.

Walburga's sharp eyes caught wind of his awkwardness at once.

So…what Lucretia had said _was_ true. The wizards in this country had let everything go to hell, _honestly_!

"Regulus Arcturus—" Mrs. Black snapped, sharply. "I hope for _your_ sake you weren't taking young girls out to Hogsmeade on…" She furrowed her brow, trying to remember the common word Lucretia had used. "' _Dates_ '."

"Of course not, Mother!" Face flushed, he looked utterly mortified. "I never, I mean…"

Before he could even get out the line of defense, she patted his shoulder, approvingly. It wasn't necessary—of course _he_ wouldn't have done such a thing. Regulus Arcturus was a good boy who knew better than to disgrace his family name and sink to behavior beneath himself. _And_ he'd been in Slytherin, the only place in that dratted school where she was certain they still had a sense of decorum.

As usual, it was not Regulus she had to worry about.

"And what about _your_ brother?" Walburga pressed, none-too-gently. "Did _he_ ever disgrace himself in this manner, by taking girls out?"

It was an old tactic she had developed for ferreting information about her problem son from the more pliant one. She would assure her youngest that she had every confidence in his seemliness, and immediately follow with sharp probe into the behavior of his brother. The compliment and assurance of the great credit Regulus did his family by behaving well softened him up, making him far less likely to lie for Sirius.

Divide and conquer.

Predictably, Regulus looked alarmed and flustered by the question.

"I—I don't know!" he answered, stuttering. "Why would _I_ know anything about what he got up to with…"

Mrs. Black's nostrils flared. It wasn't as though she was surprised—after all, Sirius Orion had been practically taunting her with the implication of his indiscretions the past several days, and even her staid husband had suggested to her it was likely.

No, what annoyed her presently was that Regulus had not immediately caved to her demands for information. Was this stubbornness the work of Sirius's influence? She was going to have to start leaving Kreacher to watch them more often, if her younger boy was picking up the elder's bad habits.

"Don't lie to me, Regulus Arcturus Black." She narrowed his eyes—he flinched. "You were at school with Sirius Orion, and your brother makes a _spectacle_ of himself wherever he goes. If he did anything untoward or indecent, you know _all_ about it, I'm sure."

It was at that moment the meddling and dreadfully common Potter girl came back into the room, hefting a silver tea tray with her wand. Walburga's son's eyes fell on her and he instantly saw a means of escape.

"I don't! Sirius and I weren't even in the same house—" Regulus pointed to Lily, who was quietly setting out the tea and trying not to make her eavesdropping obvious. "Ask _her_ , she was in Gryffindor in the same year, _and_ she's married to his best mate. I bet _she_ knows all about his…girlfriends, if he _had_ any."

Mrs. Black's eyes flashed at this vulgar word, and then she surprised Regulus by turning in Lily's direction. The young woman stifled a laugh at the realization of exactly what she had walked in on, but the moment Walburga's eyes fell on her, she forced herself to look serious.

"You—girl." Lily froze over the cup of tea she was pouring from the silver pot that Mrs. Black had insisted her sons use over Sirus's battered Tesco-brand kettle. "Come here. I want to…speak to you."

Mrs. Potter was too surprised at the rare acknowledgement of her existence to protest the rudeness of the address or the demand. She set down the pot and walked over to mother and son, plastering on the expression of forced politeness she always wore around the Blacks.

At the prospect of actually conversing with Lily, Sirius's mother seemed almost as uncomfortable as the younger girl.

"My son—you…" Walburga hesitated. "You knew him well in school, didn't you?"

Mrs. Potter had to school herself not to raise an eyebrow.

"Oh, yes— _very._ " Lily laughed to think of it. "He and my husband were practically attached at the hip. And then after James and I started going out, Sirius and I became very good chums."

Walburga's eyes narrowed. From behind his mother, Regulus was making none-too-subtle slashing gestures with his hand.

"So I've heard," Mrs. Black said—and Lily was surprised by the tone of civility in her words. "So—if you knew him so well, you'll be able to tell me…" She paused for dramatic effect. "Was my son ever… _attached_ to any young women?"

The words tumbled out of Walburga's mouth, as if she had had trouble even forming this disagreeable thought circumstances had forced her to voice.

Lily's mouth twitched. She was not surprised by this line of questioning. From her first meeting with Mrs. Black the week before, she had been convinced that underneath her austere, Victorian demeanor, Walburga was a _mum_ , just like any other.

Mums wanted to know what their children were up to.

She weighed her two options: telling Sirius's mother what he would want her to say (about his love life—as little as possible) or telling her the truth.

As he was not here and she had a strong inkling Mrs. Black was only looking for a confirmation of what she already knew, Lily chose the latter.

"I would say it was more a question of _them_ being attached to _him_ ," Lily replied, cheerily. "Sirius was the best-looking boy in school by _miles_. I don't think there was a single witch who didn't fancy him at some point, apart from me."

The older woman raised an eyebrow and made an impatient scoffing noise in the back of her throat. That her son was the most handsome wizard of his age she was naturally sure of—it hardly need be said. His father had been, after all—and he looked just like Orion at that age, though her husband had never seemed much aware of how good-looking he was, and Sirius certainly was.

The question was the _degree_ to which he had taken advantage of these trollops who had slobbered after him.

Lily read the look in Walburga's eyes and smiled, patiently.

"He never had a steady girlfriend, if that's what you're asking."

"That's truly what they call themselves now? Girlfriends?"

"And boyfriends," Lily confirmed, helpfully.

Mrs. Black goggled at the younger woman.

"But you and your husband engaged in this practice?" The forbidding witch was so confused she forgot to narrow her eyes. "You—went around together _before_ you were married?"

It took a moment for her to realize exactly what Mrs. Black was asking—and with total sincerity.

"Are you asking if I was James's girlfriend before I was his wife, Mrs. Black?" Lily asked, stifling an incredulous laugh.

She got a confused stare in return. Nothing about this question seemed strange in the least to her—apart from Lily's amusement.

"Yes," the older woman replied, drawing herself up with utmost dignity. "I am."

Lily controlled her smile. Beneath the hauteur, the coldness, the imperious manner—it was quite obvious that the woman really was out of her depth—genuinely lost.

And she was actually looking to her—to Lily Potter, a Muggle-born witch, for answers.

 _"_ _Anyone can change, Padfoot."_

 _"_ _Not my mother, Lils—I'm telling you." Sirius had shook his head and shoveled another mouthful of potatoes into his mouth. "She's just pretending she doesn't know you're Muggle-born because it's convenient, you having helped save Reg's life, even she knows she wouldn't come off well complaining about you—as long as you don't bring up that your dad was an insurance salesman, you can get by with her ignoring you like she would a half-blood. Or anyone outside my family, come to think of it. They think they're a bloody king and queen—most everyone else is a peasant."_

He had a point, even an optimist like Lily could see he did—it would be easier to give Walburga up for a bad job if she had not seen her crying over Sirius's bed that night.

Lily glanced down at spool of yarn and knitting needles in her arms. Maybe it was the hormones that were making her feel it, but she felt a strange kind of bond with Mrs. Black. If she could feel so much protectiveness over the baby she carried, that she had only known for six weeks, how much more would she care in twenty years?

"Well…" Lily gave her a kindly look. "Then I'll tell you how it all happened. James and I started going out in seventh year—he would take me out to Hogsmeade on weekends, and he came with me to my sister's wedding—as a date." She shook her head at that particular memory. "But it didn't take long for him to pop the question. He'd liked me for _ages_ —so we got married about a year after we started dating. Not that unusual of a case, I'd say."

Mrs. Black looked more bewildered than ever.

"So that's… _really_ how young people court these days, is it?" she asked, her voice carrying none of its usual authority.

She sounded rather deflated, at a loss perhaps?—not imperious at all.

"I'm afraid so."

"I see." The older woman tapped her perfectly manicured fingers against her handbag, thoughtful—clearly she was processing this new information. "Well, I…that is…I suppose I should…thank you. Lucretia can be droll. I didn't know whether to believe her or not."

"Your sister-in-law was not having you on, Mrs. Black, let me assure you." The older woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other in a manner uncannily similar to her eldest son. "And you're welcome."

Lily kept her smile firmly in place, and to her surprise, Mrs. Black was the one to break eye-contact first.

Inwardly, Mrs. Potter cheered. It felt like a victory, however small.

The Black matriarch straightened up, addressing Regulus now.

"I'm leaving now, Regulus Arcturus. Kreacher will remain here with you until supper." There was no question here, and if her youngest had any objections to the family servant being left to watch over him, he did not voice them. She turned towards the elf. "When Sirius gets in, be sure to make him eat something of _substance._ "

"Yes, Mistress Black," the elf agreed—but he looked a little grumpy at the prospect of this particular order.

She turned back to her younger son, who by now had abandoned his half-eaten pear.

"I hope you will at least bother to _dress_ before dinner this evening, Regulus," she remarked, dryly. "Seven o'clock sharp."

Regulus mumbled a non-committal reply. His mother's drop-in had left him no less gloomy than he was when she'd arrived, and he curled his feet under him and picked up his book, an unrepentantly sullen gesture. Mrs. Black rolled her eyes, then drew herself up and took a few steps towards the door.

Lily, filled with newfound confidence, intercepted the formidable older woman before she made it to the kitchen.

"Mrs. Black—before you go, I've been meaning to talk to you about something." Lily gulped in a breath of nerve-steadying air. "It's more of a…favor I wanted to ask, really."

"A favor?" Both of Walburga's perfectly arched black brows went up in unison. "What _favor_ could _I_ possibly _do_ for you?"

Regulus peaked over the edge of his book. Kreacher, too, was staring at Lily—he made his disbelief at her nerve even more obvious than his young charge.

"It's about your Christmas holiday plans."

Mrs. Black's hand froze on the door-handle.

"What _about_ them?" she asked, her voice tense, and she jerked her head around to give Lily a piercing look.

Lily's eyes glanced at Regulus—he was subtlety shaking his head—then back into the silver-gray eyes of the older witch.

"Well—from what I understand, you and your husband are spending Christmas Day here in the flat with Regulus and Sirius. Which sounds _lovely_ —" Lily said, hastily cutting off any snide remarks at the jump. "I'm sure it _will_ be, being all together again, since you haven't for three years—and that your erm, family traditions are—"

"—I assume you have a _point_?" Walburga interrupted, her voice icy. "Beyond idle flattery, I mean."

"Yes. Well. I was wondering—that is to say—" She fumbled a bit before regaining her bearings. "I understand that on Christmas _Eve_ you have a family party at your house in Regent's Park, and Regulus and Sirius will both be here in the flat…alone. So—I was wondering if it would be possible for Sirius to come to mine and my husband's place on the 24th."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop about ten degrees. Both Kreacher and Regulus stared at Lily like one would a criminally insane person.

"You want Sirius Orion to leave his brother unprotected and alone on Christmas Eve so that he can cavort with you and your—friends?" Mrs. Black asked, stiffly.

"Well, that's where the favor comes in. I thought, maybe—you, or even Mr. Black could slip out and stay here with Regulus, just for an hour or two." Walburga's eyes widened—but the impertinences kept coming. "It would mean _so much_ to James and I if he could come to our cottage for dinner. Sirius is—he's like _family_ to us."

If there had been even the slightest possibility of Walburga Black yielding to Lily's request, the last sentence shot her chances to hell.

The look proud matriarch gave her was contemptuous in the extreme.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but my son will not be going _anywhere_ on Christmas Eve." Lily's face fell, and Walburga continued, her voice colder than the younger woman had ever heard it. " _We_ understand the holidays to be a time for family, and our obligations are such that leaving Grimmauld Place is impossible. Sirius Orion will spend Christmas Eve with his brother, as has been planned—and I need hardly add, as is _right_."

Mrs. Black took a moment to relish deflating Mrs. Potter's dreams like a punctured balloon before she turned the handle of the door and marched out of the flat.

Lily stood rigid on the spot—it had all happened so fast, she hardly knew what had happened. There was a soft sound of throat clearing, and she turned her head to look at Regulus.

"I could've _told_ you that wasn't going to work."

Lily groaned and marched over to the armchair. She collapsed into it, a solider who had barely escaped from battle unscathed, and threw her knitting things on the table in a fit of temper—the temper she had been trying very hard to control, since entering the married state, though who could blame her for losing it, after _such_ a frustrating exchange?

"I thought I was making progress with her," she groused to the slight boy on the sofa. He was nibbling on a croissant, watching her intently from across the coffee table. "Now I'm back to _square one_. Brilliant."

Regulus shook his head in pity, and he scoffed quietly.

"You shouldn't have said the bit about you and Potter considering Sirius 'family'."

"Is _that_ what got her back up?"

"Among other things." Regulus brushed some crumbs off his lap. "Sorry about your party."

Lily looked up, and when she met his eyes—found that he actually meant it.

"It's not your fault. Making sure you're safe is far more important." Lily ran a hand through her hair. "I wanted to surprise James, that's all. His mum and dad both died a few months back, so it's his first Christmas without them. Sirius being around would have cheered him up."

Regulus's brown eyes gleamed with some indiscernible emotion. He offered her a thin, apologetic smile.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm sure my brother would much rather be with _you_ on Christmas than stuck in this flat with _me_."

Lily smiled back, sadly.

"Why was she asking about his love life at Hogwarts, anyway?" she asked, trying to change the subject. "What was that _really_ all about?"

Regulus let out the long-suffering sigh—one Lily recognized well. It was the sigh of the younger sibling.

"Just my brother being an idiot, as usual," Regulus told her, scornfully. "He pushed too far. Sirius is going to regret crossing Mother."

He curled up a little further on the couch and scowled, then he turned back to her. Lily thought he looked very young, just then—and tired.

"He _really_ didn't tell you what happened last night?"

Even Lily's monumental patience couldn't take it anymore.

"Look, Regulus—" He started at her informality—but she was not going to call him 'Black', even if he wanted her to. "He'll be back soon. Why don't you ask your brother yourself?"

"What would be the point?" Regulus asked—his bitterness was unmistakeable. "He won't tell me anything."

"How can you know if you haven't even _tried_?"

Lily had abandoned politeness in favor of her more natural and open demeanor, and it did the trick in disarming the younger Black brother. He stared down at the sofa upholstery, absently petting Kreacher on the head—but clearly thinking very hard about her question.

"He doesn't trust me," he said at last, looking up.

Her almond-shaped eyes widened in shock.

"Of course he trusts—"

"No, he doesn't," Regulus insisted, running a hand through his hair in a very Sirius-like gesture. "Sirius might care—but that doesn't mean he trusts me. I can't blame him, either. If _I_ were the one in his position—I probably wouldn't trust _him_."

"Whatever has happened, the two of you are brothers," she insisted. "You're family."

"And for him, that makes it _worse,"_ he returned, tossing the basket of food back on the floor next to Kreacher. The elf was staring up at him with undisguised concern. "Don't pretend he hasn't told you awful things about my parents and me. The way you speak to me and my mother—I know it's all an _act_ —"

"It's not an act," Lily shot back, angrily. "It's called being kind. You might want to try it sometime. Don't follow your brother's example, though—he's not very good at it either."

Regulus's face flushed.

"He's been angry with me ever since Kreacher brought them here."

"I know it's complicated," Lily leaned forward in the chair. She would have liked to her a hand on his arm, but he was like a skittish animal, and it seemed as though he'd run away if she tried it. "And that between you all there are a lot of hurt feelings, and it won't be easy—but whatever has happened, you _will_ be able to move past it. Anyone can start over."

He stared at her for a long while.

"You really believe that, don't you?" Regulus asked, finally, not bothering to conceal his cynicism. His eyes glittered like his mother—it didn't suit him much.

"Of course I do."

"So if _Severus Snape_ had been the one who turned up half-dead on that doorstep, you'd be sitting here giving him a speech about starting over, would you?"

Lily was naturally pale, so when color drained from her face she looked ill. For a moment she just stared at him, at a loss.

"That is not the same thing," she said, at last, her voice subdued.

"Isn't it?" Regulus asked, wryly. "You used to be friends with Severus. _Best_ friends, I thought. That's what he told me."

It had never occurred to Lily that Regulus might've spoken to Severus—she had never seen them together in school. And it certainly had never crossed her mind that if he would ever talk about _her_ to _any_ of his Slytherin mates, let alone Sirius's younger brother.

"We…we _were_."

"And why did you stop?"

"Because I knew what he was going to—"

Regulus smiled, without humor—Lily stopped herself. He had caught her, hadn't he?

"So, Sev—" She shook her head, correcting herself. "— _Severus_ —he's really one of…of your lot, now?"

" _Their_ lot—and yes, of course. You must've suspected." She didn't reply—it wasn't necessary. Of course she'd suspected. That was why she and Severus had stopped being friends in the first place. "You know, the Slytherins always thought it was so strange, that you were mates. Everyone gave him a hard time about it."

"You too?"

There was a hint of coolness in her voice now—but Regulus clearly preferred that to her 'nice' act. Lily was done for the day trying to prove her sincerity to Sirius's high-strung relations.

"I had a blood traitor brother in Gryffindor that they all _loathed_ , so I was hardly in a position to talk," he pointed out, dryly. "…How did you even become friends?"

It had been such a long time since anyone had asked her that question—and it was perhaps the first time that it had been asked without any judgement, that she felt herself momentarily incapable of speech.

"We met before school. We're…from the same town." Lily hesitated, unsure if she should go—but Sirius's little brother was looking at her with such honest curiosity, that she found herself up to the task of "Sev—saw me doing magic in the park, one day. I mean, I didn't know that's what it was, yet, but he came up to me…and he told me I was a witch." Her mouth felt dry, and she swallowed. "He was the first one to tell me, actually."

Regulus looked astonished.

"Does Potter know that?"

"No," she answered, giving him a rueful look. "Severus is _not_ his favorite topic." Regulus chose not to say anything, but the knowing look in his eyes made her face flush scarlet, and she continued. "Anyway, after that we became friends. When we started school, and we were sorted into different houses…everything got _harder_. Except for the summer hols, of course. It _almost_ felt normal, then…like it used to."

"I know what you mean."

Regulus had spoken without thinking, and he turned red at the look of unspoken understanding in her eyes. Lily and he stared at each other, each feeling sympathy for the other they would have never expected.

"He defended you." Regulus broke the silence with this blunt statement. "Severus, I mean."

She clenched her jaw—a stab of anger and pain at the thought of the man who she would always think of first as the little boy hiding in the hedges—in his way, the first person to see her for what she really was.

Her face went cold.

"I can't imagine he's been defending me much lately, considering he joined up with the people who want me _dead_."

Regulus seemed—oddly enough—satisfied by her anger. He tilted his head, then fell back on the couch cushions.

"So you're saying you _wouldn't_ be trying to make up with him, if he were here?"

Lily glared at him—but she wasn't angry, not really. He had a point, after all. It was easy enough for her to tell him his problems with his estranged family could be fixed, but considering her own history…well.

As they said—do as I say, not as I _do_.

"I feel compelled to point out," Lily observed, her voice unusually dry. "That if Sev _were_ here, Sirius and he would have already _killed_ each other by now, and the question of patching things up would be moot. For both of us."

Reg cracked a dark smile.

"He might hate my brother—but he hates your husband even _more_." Regulus's eyebrows drew together, and he frowned. "You ought to warn Potter. Tell him to watch his back."

Lily felt a flutter of fear in the pit of her stomach.

"Shouldn't I watch mine?" she asked, sarcastically. Regulus smiled—and there was the barest hint of mischief there that almost reminded her of his brother.

"As far as _Severus Snape_ is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much."

Her face flushed—for though he was as cool and blank-faced as ever, it was impossible for Lily to mistake his meaning.

"But where all the other Death Eaters are concerned?"

He blinked, slowly—the shutters came up behind his eyes.

"From _them—"_ He paused, that slightly haunted look she had spotted in his eyes more than once over the past week casting a shadow over his thin face. "From _them_ you have something to fear."

Lily picked up her knitting needles and rose to her feet.

"I knew that already." She traced her stomach over her bulky sweater. There was more than one person to worry about, now, as far as her safety was concerned. "And as for Severus Snape—I find it hard to imagine him changing sides—or wanting to make up with me." He continued to stare at her, and she continued, for the first time letting bitterness creep into her voice. "That's the _difference_ between the two of you."

She settled back down on the floor, ready to start afresh on her project of making a hat for the baby that would be born in a little more than seven months.

Regulus chose not to argue with her.

* * *

 _"_ _Where did you get that, Ms. Battancourt?"_

 _She jumped at Mrs. Malfoy's question, for she had been scanning the hall, looking for him—he had managed, against all odds, to slip out of sight, like a phantom from a dream. She looked down to see where Narcissa was pointing._

 _At the small metal object gripped tightly in her right hand._

 _"_ _I found it—on the floor," she lied, quickly—Narcissa had already tugged her arm up and was examining the silver flask she had clasped in one hand. "I think it belongs to one of the gentlemen."_

 _"_ _It must." Narcissa dropped her hand and smiled, haughtily. "Probably that Norwegian clod. I'm sorry for leaving you on your own, if I'd known that man spoke French, I'd never have let you get trapped in a conversation with him. He seemed a dreadful boor."_

 _"_ _He wasn't, really," she said, quickly, her face turning red. "He was—"_

"What about _this_ one, Colette?"

The loud crow of her Aunt Eugenie Fawley forcibly yanked Colette Battancourt back to the present.

She blinked rapidly and stared around the shop, confused. For a moment she could not recall where she was—until the racks of robes, hats, scarves and gloves that lined the walls of _Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions_ came into focus, and the mundanity of her surroundings came back to her like a bucket of ice water on the head. No longer was she in the glittering ballroom of Malfoy Manor of evening last, that place and time her imagination had conjured so perfectly.

Shopping for new dress robes with her aunt was about as far from the intrigues of the night before as it was possible to _be_.

"I—I'm sorry, Auntie," she said, still dazed. "I didn't hear what you said."

Ms. Fawley narrowed her beady eyes.

"Honestly—that's the third time you've drifted off, _petite sotte_." The old woman shook her head and clucked her tongue. "Your mind isn't on the task at hand _at all_."

Colette winced at the scolding. Madam Malkin's shop assistant—a plump and good-natured witch, arms full of discarded robes—gave her a sympathetic smile. She had taken the young French woman's measurements a half-hour earlier, and had since been forced to endure back and forth between the girl and her aged maiden-aunt over the best color and fit, and how many sets they should buy. Ms. Fawley was determined not to leave the shop until her great-niece actually picked something of her own accord, but she couldn't get the silly girl to focus on fabrics and ribbons to save her life.

She must not have been able to sleep, after the overexcitement of that party—of course, her mind was in the clouds. It _always_ was.

"Well?" Ms. Fawley pressed. "What do you think of _these_?"

Colette dutifully considered the set of bright pink robes her aunt had practically shoved into her face. She stared at the lace collar—she had no feelings whatever about this ensemble, but she forced a smile just the same.

"If you like this set, we should get them."

" _You_ are the one who is going to be wearing the robes, Colette," Eugenie sighed, exasperated. "What matters is if _you_ like them."

"I trust your taste, Aunt Eugenie," she replied, innocently. "And anyway, you know I don't have a head for these sorts of things."

"That's the problem." Her great aunt tutted, not bothering to hide her disapproval. "A girl of your age should take an interest in fashion, and know what suits her complexion and figure best. You should _only_ have a head for these sorts of things."

Inwardly, Colette sighed. These words were an echo of what her mother had been saying to her since she was thirteen years old—but she had long since resigned herself to the fact that she could not force herself to care about things that were, to her, fundamentally uninteresting. Anyway, she had a mother who cared very deeply about fashion, who was known from _Rouen_ to _Avignon_ for her impeccable—if perhaps a little old-fashioned—taste, and who had a keen interest in her only daughter looking her best.

All that was taken care of. What was there left for Colette to have an opinion about—why even bother pretending she cared?

Eugenie held the gown up over the cloak her grand-niece had put back, giving it a critical eye.

"Narcissa Malfoy is going to introduce you to all of her friends—" She lifted the dress to Colette's pale cheek, to see how it looked against her skin. "Don't you want to show yourself to your best advantage?"

"Of course, Aunt," Colette said, dutifully.

She tried to focus on the pink party gown, and determine whether she really liked it or not. The color was bright, meant to draw the eye—as the daughter of a provincial branch of the Battancourt family, she had never been the center of attention—nor had she wanted to be, despite an ambitious mother with ideas to the contrary.

"I think everyone will _stare_ at me if I am wearing that," she said, honestly.

"That's the point." Eugenie tossed it into the growing pile of keepers in the other witch's arms. "You have beautiful eyes, and it will make them stand out—young wizards notice that sort of thing, you know."

Colette hid a smile. Fabienne had warned her not to pay too much mind to her aunt's advice where attracting a husband was concerned, as she was an old maid, and could hardly be trusted on that score.

"Of course, auntie," she said, her voice sweet and coaxing. "I think this one is lovely—though I am not sure I need another one."

"Your mother was _very_ explicit," Ms. Fawley pointed out, voice bone-dry. "Ten in total, that was what she said."

Ms. Battancourt stared at the massive pile of gowns already piled up in the shop assistant's arms, chagrined. Was she _really_ going to have occasion to wear ten different party dresses while she was in England?

Fabienne seemed to think so. Of course, Narcissa Malfoy had invited _her_ daughter to stay as her special guest for the entire week leading up to Christmas, and the Malfoys were known for socializing with only the best. Colette suspected her mother was afraid of what 'the best' would say if they caught Ms. Battancourt wearing the same gown twice in one season.

So—ten gowns it was.

"This _is_ the tenth, I think—the last one." Colette peaked up at Eugenie. She did not want to make her desire to leave the shop too obvious, lest she get another scolding for not taking this exercise in the feminine arts seriously. "Shall we have them wrapped up?"

The elderly witch, clearly not used to the physical exertion shepherding a young girl required, sighed and nodded. It had been a fatiguing three days since this slip of a girl had shown up on her doorstep.

"Yes, I think that will do for getting on with." The beleaguered shop assistant hurried away the mountain of clothes to be altered. "What time are you meeting her for luncheon?"

"In a half-hour," Colette fibbed. "If you're tired, Auntie, why don't you head back to the cottage? It will take a little time for all my dresses to be done, and by then I'll have to meet Narcissa directly. There's no reason for _you_ to stay."

"Are you sure?" Ms. Fawley looked hopefully out the shop window—the sleet of earlier in the morning had stopped, but there was still a gloomy pall hanging over the scant shoppers roaming about. She had never seen Diagon Alley this empty so close to Christmas.

She turned back to her niece.

"You'll really be fine on your own?" She thought longingly of the tea and crumpets awaiting her in Cornwall. "You—remember where the restaurant is?"

Colette recited the address from memory.

"Well, then—" Eugenie hesitated. It wasn't, strictly speaking, proper for her to leave the girl unchaperoned—but if her luncheon really _was_ in only a half hour, there was little time for her to get into trouble… "I suppose you'll be fine. It _is_ just down the road."

Inwardly, Colette smiled. That had been far easier than it should have been. Of course, she was so naturally guileless, no one ever suspected her of being capable of deceit—and the time of the lunch was hardly a great falsehood.

"I'll say goodbye to you, then—until Christmas, anyway." They bumped cheeks. "You'll be far too busy here in London to pop into the cottage and see a doddering old fuddy-duddy like _me_ , I'm sure."

Colette rolled her eyes. Her aunt—just like all the other unmarried women in her large extended family—was always making these kinds of disparaging remarks about herself. She was very independent, hardly a burden to anyone, but the way she talked one would think _Colette_ was the one who was inconvenienced by the visit.

"I should not count my dragons before they are hatched, as you English say." Colette raised an eyebrow. "We don't even know if I'm invited to _stay,_ yet."

"I'm sure Narcissa will have worked all that out by now, girl!" She laid one withered hand on Colette's slim shoulder. "Be polite to the aunt and you'll be fine. You'll have a lovely week in London."

Ms. Battancourt smiled—Eugenie's mind was already occupied with the letter she was going to write the elder Battancourt matron, so she missed how strained the expression on her niece's face was. After giving her one last hard squeeze on the arm and the rest of the gold she needed to pay for her dresses, Ms. Fawley hurried out the front door of the shop.

Colette waited until her great-aunt had disappeared around the corner of the cobbled street before she let the smile drop off her face.

There was a chair in the corner near the counter for patrons waiting for their alterations to be done. She crossed over to it and slumped down, a very unladylike pose she knew she could only get away on the rare occasion she found herself without family or guardian to scold her about her posture. There was no point in pulling out the novel she'd been reading, or her diary to write in—she already knew she wouldn't be able to focus on either.

The witch contented herself by staring out the window at the soggy street beyond the glass. She sunk back into her thoughts, let her mind wander, free from the snap of a voice telling her to pay attention to what was right in front of her instead of her imagined 'fancies'.

For once, reality was stranger than her imagination.

She frowned, thinking about the luncheon to come. She was far less certain than Eugenie of her chance at being invited to stay with Narcissa at the Black family's London house for the week leading up to Christmas, but she couldn't rightly tell her great-aunt the reason _why_.

 _That_ would involve admitting to the kind of behavior that would get her packed off to France within the hour.

When she had told Colette about her change in plans—her decision, at the behest of her husband, to leave the dull country for the comforts and excitement of town—Narcissa had assured her in much the same way her great-aunt had—airily waving off her concerns about being an unwanted pest.

 _"_ _It's not a problem at all. Number Twelve is a huge house, enormous, really—and with my cousin Regulus in France, it'll be completely empty. I'm already staying for the week, Uncle Orion and Aunt Walburga have no reason to say 'no' to you joining me."_

As far as Narcissa's aunt was concerned, that might've been true—the formidable witch had barely said three words to her at the party—but she couldn't imagine Orion Black welcoming her into his home with open arms.

Not after what had happened.

 _"_ _Ah—Narcissa. I wondered if I could have a word with you and your….companion."_

 _Colette, who had been trying to slip the flask into her shirt sleeve—it was too tight around her wrist, drat it all!—froze and blushed. Narcissa seemed surprised at the intrusion, and she frowned and exchanged a look of confusion with her friend._

 _"_ _Of course, Uncle Orion," she said, politely. "What did you—?"_

 _"_ _It's about that man—the Nord." He turned his eyes to her—he was so stern, and she couldn't help but think what the stranger had said—that he was not a man to be crossed. "I noticed you were…conversing quite animatedly with him, Ms. Battancourt."_

 _Narcissa gave a little indignant huff on her friend's behalf._

 _"_ _It turns out he can speak French," Cissy said, coldly. "So he cornered her. Colette_ just _escaped."_

 _"_ _He seemed pleasant enough, from what I could see—" Mr. Black's cold eyes narrowed. "He didn't say anything…at all_ odd _to you, did he?"_

 _She blinked—was there anything the man had said that wasn't odd?_

 _"_ _He was—he said nothing out of the ordinary, sir," Colette managed to squeak out, and she nervously glanced down at her hands. Mr. Black's gaze followed where hers lead, and it rested on the square silver object she was turning over._

 _"_ _What is that you have there?"_

 _She had stuttered and stumbled and tried to put him off—but it was too late. Another careless remark from Mrs. Malfoy ("She found it on the floor—we think it must be the Nord's, those foreigners think themselves above our drinks!") and he had managed to extract the flask from her grip with a promise to find the gentleman it belonged to and return it, post-haste._

 _She felt ill after that._

 _The stranger had told her he feared discovery by Orion Black above everyone else—and she had handed over what could only be the very proof of his deceit. Colette wanted to warn him—but after he had stolen that kiss, he had disappeared, and for the rest of the evening she peered around every corner of the room, searching desperately—_

 _She never saw him again._

 _Hours later, after nearly everyone had left, and the gentlemen emerged from the drawing room, in jovial (or downcast) spirits, depending on whether they'd won or lost at cards, Mr. Black had found her again—this time, alone._

 _"_ _What did he say to you?" Mr. Black was not pretending to be civil, now. "Don't play stupid, girl—that man, Svensson—the Nord. What did he tell you?"_

 _The words were aggressive, forceful—she was quite afraid of him._

 _"_ _Nothing—he said—"_

 _"—_ _Did he give you his real name?" Mr. Black cut her off, urgently._

 _So he had been discovered! Her blue eyes widened._

 _"_ _Non—he only said…" She blushed hard, under Mr. Black's scrutiny. He looked haggard, not at all the man she had been introduced to hours ago. "That he was meeting someone in the hall, and he didn't want to be recognized—by you or—or anyone else. That was all, I swear, Monsieur Black—I know nothing else."_

 _He stared at her for a long time—then he nodded, slowly._

 _"_ _I believe you," he said to Colette, his voice curt—and tired. Mr. Black sighed. "You will not speak of this or…that_ man _to anyone."_

 _She nodded, terrified._

 _"_ _I won't tell a soul, I swear, monsieur," she assured him. The older man sighed again—any anger at her forgotten—and she had a sneaking suspicion his vehemence had more to do with his history with the stranger than her. Colette hesitated—her curiosity getting the better of her. "Monsieur Black—who…who_ was _he?"_

 _He laughed, coldly._

 _"_ _A fool of the first order—he's gone now." He smiled, grimly, and when he spoke it was as much to himself as her. "It's just as well he didn't tell you anything. You're better off by far—that imbecile brings misfortune wherever he goes. Forget him, girl."_

Sensible advice—she'd been trying without success to follow it ever since.

Meeting a man in disguise in a ballroom was too exciting to forget quickly. It was the sort of thing that happened in stories—not in real life, to real people—and certainly not to _her_ , Colette Battancourt, a little nobody, a girl of no consequence from a provincial branch of one of the great pureblood houses of France.

Her expectations for the trip had been low. Two days in, and in terms of excitement alone, her time in England had far outstripped expectation.

When she had kissed _Mamon_ and _Papa_ goodbye in Rouen, with a promise to write about everything she saw and every wizard she met, Colette had assumed she'd have nothing to fill her letters with fashion and dull English gossip. It had been her grandmother's idea to send her here, at first—her mother had had to be brought around to the idea. The elderly Madame Eulalie Battancourt, _née_ Fawley was the only woman who held more sway with her son than his wife Fabienne, and though she rarely employed it, it was always to great effect. She nursed a soft spot for her only grandchild, in spite of her bookishness. Fifty years in France had not stamped the English out of Eulalie, and she had a fancy that the girl was English at heart, too, and a lengthy sojourn on the damp island where Eulalie Fawley had spent her youth would help bring her out of her shell.

The young witch would have agreed to almost _anything_ to get away from France in December, for she lived in dread of another Christmas season spent in Paris with the main branch of the family. She might've had an excellent imagination, but even Colette could not pretend to relish the endless stream of parties and nosy relations who looked down on her for her country manners, and that she preferred reading and flying her broom to flirting and fashion.

At _least_ she might meet some new people in England—and she wasn't related to anyone here, apart from her aunt. No relatives—what a wondrous thought!

The aim of the trip, of course, was not for her to escape from a Battancourt Christmas—it was for her to make a good match. She didn't have high hopes for _that_. Colette privately thought it unlikely that Fabienne's plans for her would come off, no matter how determined her mother was—she had no fortune and only a little beauty, and none of the confidence that was apparently required to "catch" a husband.

Her mother had fixed on Rabastan Lestrange as the prime candidate only because she was convinced that if the younger Lestrange brother was still a bachelor at twenty-eight, he must not like any of the available English pureblood witches. Colette, therefore, must have a good chance at catching his eye and "securing him".

Rabastan had been as polite to her as any of the other English wizards she'd met the few times she'd visited. She had been willing to try to "get him," as her mother mercenarily referred to what she was supposed to do—Colette had no objection to the possibility of marriage to, in principle—or she hadn't, until last night.

Hearing Rabastan Lestrange described as a "brutal thug" had cooled her to the idea.

Was that true? What did it mean, and—how would the imposter have known? Could she even trust him? Finding out the identity of the man in disguise who had spoken those words had quite outstripped any dim idea she had of marrying _anyone_.

Who _was_ he? She could not stop thinking about it.

And what had gotten into _her_ , to approach him as she had? Colette hardly knew herself. Perhaps it had been that the hall was full of strangers—she'd felt like she was wearing a mask, acting the part of someone else—a far more daring, romantic figure than her real self—a bookish, quiet girl who nothing interesting ever happened to.

She had never been spoken to like that. He had not the faintest idea of pleasing her, had insulted her, in fact—called her naive and green—but every time she thought the shocking things he'd said…and of that stolen kiss on the hand…she felt a rush of color to her cheeks.

Colette had not the slightest chance of finding out who he was _now_. For some reason—maybe because all the rest seemed like a novel—she had the oddest feeling, like the mystery of his identity was something she could solve, if only she thought hard enough she could puzzle it out. She kept running the details over in her mind. He had been well-bred, of _that_ she was sure of—he had known far too much about the men and women in the room for her to think otherwise, in spite of his protestations—and the way he spoke, was mannered, even if he was impudent. He must've come from good wizarding stock—

"—Is this really all of the _worst_ patterns you have?"

The loud voice of a man complaining at the counter jolted her out of her thoughts. She turned her head 'round and frowned at the back of his dark head.

As usual, reality was far more _tedious_ than the things in her _mind_.

"I'm _sorry_ , dear." Madam Malkin held up the rung of swatches, lips pursed in a humorless expression. Colette goggled at the selection the man had asked for—all extremely gaudy colors, no Battancourt man would be caught dead wearing mauve or incandescent blue. "We try to carry dress robe materials that wizards will _actually_ buy."

"Come on, Malkie—don't you have—I don't know, dress robes that are…red with white trim, a kind of Father Christmas-looking thing? Green-striped with bow round the middle, like a present? I'm looking to _shock_ —" The young man took a step back from the fabrics to give them a critical look. "—And I have to tell you, these are doing _nothing_ for me. They aren't nearly garish enough."

Colette quietly slipped her diary out of her bag. She liked to note down odd or interesting behavior, and the obnoxious young wizard in the wrinkled and outdated robes now harassing the shop mistress would make a perfect comic study in one of her stories. She leaned forward in her chair to see if she could get a glimpse of his face, but the angle was no good.

Madam Malkin sighed loudly, clearly torn between irritation and bemusement.

"Yes, well—garish is not what we go in for, dear," she remarked, dryly. "What do you say to some of these, I think they'll suit you _far_ —"

Her suggestion of an alternative pattern for robes was interrupted by the arrival of another shop assistant, carrying a large and ostentatious ostrich-feather turban in one hand. The unfortunate bird from which the feathers had come had apparently also lost his life, for a ghoulishly taxidermic ostrich head, complete with beak and glowing eyes, wrapped around the base of the headdress.

It was probably the most ridiculous hat Colette had ever seen.

"Laura—what on earth are you doing with that old thing?" Madam Malkin asked, perturbed by the arrival of the strange headdress, which was blinking eerily at her. "I thought we got rid of it _ages_ ago."

"The boy said he was looking for an unusual hat—preferably one that an animal had died for." The witch had evidently thought this request amusing; she turned the ostrich to face Madam Malkin. "All I could think of was this old fellow—I knew somebody would take to him, poor dear."

The seamstress opened her mouth to argue, but she was drowned out by the whoop of laughter.

"That's perfect—Merlin, it's _hideous!_ " he crowed, with undisguised glee. "Please tell me it's expensive, too."

"One of a kind," the shop assistant replied, cheerily. She named a large figure—Colette marveled at the uncouthness of the man to ask about price so openly, and then he went further in cementing her impression of his poor manners by pulling a gigantic sack of gold out of his robe and slapping it on the counter.

"Marvelous. I can practically picture it on her head. Can I have that gift wrapped, by chance?" He rather crassly began counting out the gold in loud clacks on the counter. "I'll need an itemized receipt for it as well—you wouldn't mind describing it as 'tasteful winter cap' on the descriptor line, would you?" He snorted. "I mean—it's a stretch on the winter bit, but 'tasteful' is in the eye of the beholder, I say."

"Of course, love—do you want a inscription on the tag?"

"Just put 'Granny Crabapple' on the 'to' line, I'll fill in the personal message when I get home." The women exchanged disapproving looks. "It's a nickname—very affectionate, I assure you. I'd call the old girl the _Crabapple_ to her face, if she were in here."

Colette stifled a giggle behind her diary, the noise drew the attention of young man, and he turned toward the source of the sound.

"At least _someone_ in here appreciates my sense of humor—"

The second he caught sight of her face the words died in his throat.

Colette couldn't help herself—she gasped.

If _she_ had been the one to place that dialogue in the mouth of a character, he would have been a comic figure with exaggerated features…it must have been a mark of her own limitations as a writer that she found his face far more shocking than his words. There was nothing funny about what she stared at now. Dark hair framed what was, quite frankly, the handsomest face of a young man Colette had ever laid eyes on. She looked into a pair of expressive gray eyes, traced the perfectly even features, high cheek-bones, ruddy from the cold. Though she had never seen this young man in her life—she would have remembered _that_ face—Colette thought his expression of haughty surprise as he gaped at her seemed oddly…familiar.

Most confusing of all, his handsome features were contorted with obvious and marked dislike—directed towards _her_.

Bewildered, the witch's face colored, and after a protracted moment of this strange piercing look, she found herself glaring back. She felt self-conscious and was annoyed at herself for it. She hadn't done anything wrong—what an abominably rude wizard, to gape at her, so!

"Miss—your robes are all finished."

The voice startled her, and Colette abruptly broke eye contact and looked back around at the counter. The plump shop assistant who had been helping her with the fitting had reappeared, arms full of neatly packed boxes filled with her freshly hemmed and tailored gowns.

She shoved her diary back in her purse, stood up, and marched over to the counter. Unfortunately, paying required she stand directly next to the man. His eyes still burned the side of her cheek.

She stuck her nose up in the air and tried to ignore him. It was hard—she was not used to scrutiny, particularly from men of undoubtedly low origin.

The gold Aunt Eugenie had given her was just enough to pay for her extravagant new wardrobe. After collecting her change, she pulled the heavy package into her arms.

"Excuse me, madame, I was wondering—" She spoke directly to the shop assistant, trying to politely edge the rude man out of view. "Could you please tell me where the bookshop is?"

"Oh, books?—you want Flourish and Blotts, dear. It's just—"

"— _La librairie est du côté sud de la ruelle, mademoiselle_."

Colette turned her head to her fellow customer. He had gotten over his shock, and now the full lips were turned up in a derisive sneer.

"I—thank you, sir," she said, stiffly giving him the barest trace of a civil nod. His eyes glinted coldly—and there was something that lurked behind them—what she felt sure was a private joke at her expense. "Your French is—very good."

"I bet you say that to _every_ man you meet."

Colette sputtered in shock—but before she could begin to formulate the strong rebuke he deserved for speaking to her so, the young man bowed to her, shoved his comically large sack of gold back in his pockets.

"I'll come back for that later, Malkie—and the robe fitting." He grinned at Colette and doffed an invisible hat. "I hope you have a good stay in England, _mademoiselle_ —and don't get into _too_ much trouble. You don't seem like the type—but you know what they say." He winked—somehow he could make even that an insult. "It's always the quiet ones."

He left before she could utter a single word.

Were all men in this country impertinent, she fumed, as she watched him stride out the door of Madam Malkin's, or was it just her luck to meet them all in the course of one day? She sat there for minutes, fuming, before she collected her heavy boxes and left the shop, head full of smart rejoinders she could have said, if she'd only been cleverer in the moment.

This irritating encounter was helpful in _one_ way.

It had momentarily driven all thoughts of the masked man straight out of Colette's head.

* * *

"Trouble in paradise, Prongs?"

The rim of Remus's teacup hid the lower half of his face, so James could not see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He was poking restively at the soggy teabag sticking out of his own, untouched cup. At this question, coming out of a long silence between them, he looked up.

Remus was watching him, face thoughtful.

"What?" He furrowed his brow.

"You seem…distracted." Remus took a another sip, then lowered the cup, straightening his face into an expression of sobriety.

His friend had, after all, called him ahead of meeting Lily for a 'catch-up' at a Muggle coffee shop in Camden, of all places—and James Potter was a creature of habit. For them to be doing something this out of the ordinary meant his problem was serious. "I thought you were maybe—having trouble with your other half."

At the suggestion that he was fighting with his wife, James's frown became even more pronounced.

"Of course not, Moony. Things with Lily—" The dark-haired man rubbed the back of his head, distractedly. "Things with Lily have never been better, you know that—"

"—I meant your _other_ other half, Prongs."

James glared and shoved the cup across the grimy surface of the cafe table between them. Remus couldn't help himself—he smiled.

"That obvious, am I?" The taller man grumbled, stretching his leg out and slouching in his chair.

His friend's grin of amusement broadened.

"You have many wonderful qualities, James," Remus assured him, voice brimming with mock gravity. "But I have to tell you—subtlety has _never_ been one of them."

James scowled. Remus smiled, sadly—in that moment his friend was doing a remarkably good impression of the other half that so preoccupied him.

He waited, knowing what was coming. Remus knew that expression of old—James was thinking hard, formulating exactly what he wanted to say—and whatever was going on between him and Sirius, it was weighing heavily enough that he had called Remus here for the express reason of puzzling it out with him.

"Here's what I don't get, Moony. Answer me _this_ ," he said, at last looking up from the brown stain on the floor. "How is it that Padfoot— _our_ Padfoot—he of the greatest laughs, dare-devil extraordinaire, courageous, the truest Gryffindor ever born, friend to one and many, the best of all possible men…"

Remus smothered another laugh—wondering how long James could go on this way. Hours, probably.

"…the finest spirit and greatest amateur cartographer we know…" James trailed off, clearly going for a dramatic effect. "…How is it that _he_ came from _them_?"

 _Ah._ This _was_ going to be a sober conversation.

"So…you had a fun evening in, then?"

James's expression became, if possible, blacker.

"I mean it, Remus—can you see it?" he pressed, ignoring the question. "Do you see _any_ resemblance between Sirius and that pair of puffed up, high-born snakes that brought him up?"

Remus let out a low sigh.

"Honestly?" He drained his cup of the last of the tea. "Yes, I can."

Remus had known James wouldn't like that answer, but he hadn't expected the explosive indignation on Sirius's behalf.

"But how? How _can you say that?_ They're so…so—" He struggled to come up with words florid enough to describe Orion and Walburga Black. "—They're so _proud_ and haughty and…such stuck-up snobs—they're pureblood Slytherin _toffs,_ Moony, that's the truth! It's an insult to Sirius to even compare him to them—"

"—Sirius isn't exactly what I would call a 'humble wizard of the people', James," Remus interrupt, picking up one of the stale biscuits they'd purchase to share and nibbling the end. "We are talking about a man who thinks caviar and _Dom Perignon_ naturally pair with Chinese food."

"They _do_ pair well with Chinese food!"

James pounded his hand on the table so hard his spoon and cup rattled. The young couple at the next table goggled at them, but Remus Lupin remained unfazed.

"He grew up in a Georgian townhouse," he continued, in reasonable tones. "He learned French from his governess. Didn't he dance a _gavotte_ with Lily at your wedding?"

Prongs stared at him, more annoyed than ever.

"So? What's your point?"

"My point is that—there's a certain class of wizard in this country, a certain type of family—pureblood, rich, old fashioned and high-born—and as much as he tries to hide it, Sirius is from one of them, and…it shows."

James was visibly affronted by this succinct summary.

"I _also_ happen to come from one of those 'old pureblood families', Moony," he said, a little airily. "And I'm not like that—and nor were my mum and dad."

Remus caught himself holding back another smile. He had been trying to carefully avoid pointing out that James's inability to see Sirius's aristocratic tendencies probably came from a failure to see his own. Though Fleamont and Euphemia had been warm and loving and not snobbish, they had also been very genteel, and from them, their only son had inherited a view of the world that could best be described as 'chivalric.'

Probably wouldn't be too helpful to draw James's attention to that fact, now.

"That's true…of course, you Potters are more the 'new money' pureblood types," Remus remarked, with some irony. "— _Your_ enormous family fortune came from your father the famous potioneer. You're practically _nouveau riche_ by comparison."

It was meant as a joke, but James didn't even offer a courtesy laugh. He gave his friend a unusually challenging stare.

"You don't really think Padfoot is _like_ them, though, do you?"

The tepid smile dropped off his face. It was with a heavy heart that he considered how best to frame the truthful answer he felt compelled to give.

Sirius had, from almost the beginning of their friendship, striven to show the difference between himself and the rest of his notorious family.

His rebellion against all things Black became increasingly vehement and outrageous as they had grown older, and Remus had, in his heart of hearts, always wondered if there was a performative side to it—if Sirius had been trying to prove he wasn't like them as much to _himself_ as he was trying to prove it to the rest of the world.

It was no wonder—three years after running away from home, and people were still asking the question.

"In the ways that really matter…no, I don't think he is. But—" Remus paused, considering the qualifier carefully. "—he's not unlike them in _every way_ , James."

These words—reasonable and honest though they might be—did little to comfort his friend. He seemed more troubled than ever by them.

James picked up the spoon and tapped it on the edge of the table, anxiously. He stared down into the still-undrunk cup of tea, expression pensive.

"I think it was a mistake, making him do this," he admitted, at last. "They may not be Death Eaters, but they're dangerous people, the Blacks—and I don't like Sirius getting mixed up with them again."

"They're his parents, James," Remus said, quietly. "He'll _always_ be mixed up with them."

They lapsed into what was, for them, a rare tense and uncomfortable silence. Remus could see James wanted to argue the point, but knew it was no use.

James Potter could not erase the Blacks from existence—and that's what it would have taken to break that mercurial power they held over their eldest son.

He let out another long sigh, then picked up his mug of tepid tea and slurped some down. The werewolf across the table felt an unusual amount of unease. This conversation was not going as he had hoped—he had assuaged James of none of his concerns, clearly—and now _he_ was just as worried.

James pulled out his watch.

"It's getting on." He pushed out his chair and stood up. "Let's go. We should go meet Lily—she's been cooped up in that flat all morning."

Remus followed suit, abandoning the soggy biscuit and standing up as well. James pulled a wrinkled five pound note from his pocket and threw it down on the table. His friend smiled—though James had never really gotten the hang of converting Muggle money in his head, Moony felt sure he still would've left their waitress a tip quadruple the bill.

Prongs had the most generous spirit of anyone he knew.

The bell jingled when they pushed open the door that lead to the gray Camden street. It was lightly raining, and Remus was surprised when James asked if he wouldn't mind walking the mile or so to Lisson Grove. He had expected his friend to be eager to get his pregnant wife away from the flat that was the source of much of his anxieties, but Prongs expressed a need to clear his head that a trip on the underground could not provide—so he nodded and pulled out a tatty umbrella for them to keep their heads dry.

They were halfway through the Regent's park shortcut they always took when James spoke again.

"Do you think Sirius would lie to me?"

The only sound that punctuated the quiet of this stretch of the green were the shouts from a rowdy group of Muggle boys on Christmas holiday who had braved the cold weather to play football. They couldn't have been older than twelve, and when Remus had first spotted them as he and James crossed the soggy lawn, the werewolf was reminded, painfully, of another young foursome.

He tore his eyes away from football game to look at his friend.

"I mean, if he was in trouble— _real_ trouble…" James swallowed, hard. "…Padfoot would tell me, right? He wouldn't keep it a secret…he'd ask for my help. Wouldn't he?"

"It would depend."

"On what?"

"On how bad the trouble was," Remus said, flatly. "If he thought he could keep you out of it by lying, then—yes. I _do_ think he would."

James nodded, thoughtfully. He seemed unsurprised by this answer—perhaps all he'd been looking for was a confirmation of what he already knew.

It's not like he needed Remus to tell him the lengths Sirius would go to to protect the people he loved.

"Look, James, whatever you think is going on…you ought to talk to Sirius about it before you—act." The rain chose that moment to pick up, and so did their pace. "It's a delicate situation that he's in right now, and it requires…restraint."

"Oh, I'm well aware of how 'delicate' it is, Moony," James answered him, sticking his hands in his pockets. "And you have no idea how much restraint I'm already showing towards those people. I've half a mind to go there myself and—"

He cut himself off and scowled. Remus sighed. He knew that look. It was the heroic, world-on-his-shoulders look he always got when he was about to do something that was both very brave and very stupid. Whatever James had gotten it in his head, there would be no talking him out of it. The best he could do would be to temper his impulses, and warn Lily to do the same.

"Promise me that you'll at least _ask_ Sirius if something is wrong before you go… charging into battle with his mum and dad."

James snorted. Remus could already tell that particular word choice was being taken more as encouragement than a deterrent.

"You just told me you thought he'd lie if there was."

"Yes—but when it comes to you, he's not a good liar." Moony paused. "If there's really something amiss, you'll be able to tell, and then you can go to Dumbledore. _He'll_ know what to do."

Another slow, thoughtful nod.

"You're a good man, Moony." He clapped his friend on the shoulder and took the umbrella from him.

At some point over the course of the conversation the umbrella had migrated, and Remus hadn't noticed that he was holding it over only his friend's head until the rain drop had trickled under his collar and down his neck.

"What exactly do you think is going on, James?" he asked, seriously. He had to at least try to find out what this was really all about. "Did Regulus say something to you last night?"

The slight pause was telling.

"Don't worry about it. You've enough on your plate with your…little furry problem, and doing stuff for the Order, and everything else." James grinned at him. At once he was his usual cheerful self, and Remus couldn't help but feel glad for it. Prongs' unflagging optimism was one of the bright spots in his life right now. "We don't see each other enough, you know—you need to start coming by the cottage more often. I've missed you."

Remus felt a warmth spreading through his chest, despite the chill. He meant it—that was the thing about James. He always said what he meant.

The conversation moved to lighter things—to Christmas, and Lily and the baby, and so by the time they had trekked into Sirius's building, sodden from the leak the old umbrella had sprung when they were walking past Marylebone Station, Remus had managed to put his anxieties over his two best friends aside.

The obvious fact that James would, like Sirius, _also_ lie to any one of his friends to protect them from perceived danger—didn't even occur to him.

* * *

The legal offices of Burke and Selwyn (M.L.S.) were located at the top floor of Number 67, Knockturn Alley, an unobtrusive and decaying three-story building at the far end of the narrow street, and had been since the firm's foundation at the end of the previous century. The founding partners—the now late Hargrove Burke and his friend and distant cousin Aloysius Selwyn—were men of vision, and they had built their new business on the principle of exclusivity. Both clever men with a particular penchant for reading the times, Burke and Selwyn had seen the growing need for legal expertise among wizards of a certain quality. Their clientele, which drew without exception from the most ancient and venerable pureblood wizard clans in Britain, had peculiar needs, and this was reflected in the narrow field of magical law they specialized in—wills, trusts, inheritance, bequests and estate management.

These matters only pertained to the lives of a select breed of wizard, and they were in the business of catering to the best.

Belgravius Burke, son of the now deceased Hargrove and the current soul partner of the practice, ran a finger down the list of death notices in that morning's _Daily Prophet_. The paper, much to his chagrin, had taken to making such reports on a weekly rather than daily basis—the latter method being seen as too ghoulish.

There were only three, this week—an unusually low number of reported dead, he thought, given the current climate. There had only been two last week—the numbers were down from the autumn. Perhaps He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was, like most everyone else, too busy with his Christmas plans for anything else.

At that macabre thought, Burke chuckled to himself. One had to keep one's spirits up in times of turmoil, he reflected, wryly.

Two of the dead were nobodies of little consequence—and he had already spoken to the Marmont woman about handling the legal affairs of her sadly late husband, the only Ministry casualty of a nasty incident in Brighton that had, he was told, also lead to one arrest and three dead Muggles. He lowered the paper—disappointed but not surprised to find nothing there he did not already know. Mr. Burke liked to keep apprised of such things, and so he had an ear to the ground.

In his line of work, death was _good_ for business.

A soft knock on the door of his office followed by the creak of it opening interrupted his solitude. The solicitor turned the page of the paper, unconcerned.

"Yes?" he asked, not looking up.

"There's a—a man here to see you, Mr. Burke."

The older man's shrewd eyes flicked up off the page to give his new clerk a single, withering glance. Bletchley, a pasty and spotty youth just shy of thirty, hovered nervously at the door. He was the idiot nephew of a family friend, and Burke was fast coming to regret apprenticing him—no matter how good of friends his father had been with Otto Bagman. The callow youth had no breeding _or_ instinct.

"I believe we went over this, Bletchley," Burke remarked, turning now to the financial section of the the paper. "Did I not tell you I am not to be disturbed in the lunch hour by anyone for any reason? And furthermore—" He flicked his wand at his date book, and it flipped open to the day. "—As I have no official appointments scheduled for the rest of the afternoon, it must follow that this man is not welcome."

Burke and Selwyn did not do walk-in legal consultations—that had been the first rule he had impressed upon his new clerk.

"Yes, sir—but…" Bletchley glanced back over his shoulder. "He's very insistent. He says you know him, and he won't leave until he speaks to you."

"Did he give a name?"

"No, sir—he refuses to."

Burke's mouth thinned. _That_ told him all he needed to know.

"Tell him I won't see him without a name or prior proof of our acquaintance," he said, shortly. "If he won't give you either, throw him out."

Marching orders given, Burke listened to the timid steps of his green—and if this audience was proving anything, frankly useless—clerk, walking back towards the front parlor where visitors with appointments were never made to wait more than a minute.

Thirty seconds later, Bletchley had returned.

"I take it you were unsuccessful in ridding us of this wretch?" Burke asked, now a touch aggravated. "Don't tell me I'm going to have to do your job for you."

The clerk approached his employer with a tad more confidence.

"You won't have to, Mr. Burke. I've spoken to the gentleman, and he told me to tell you that—he _would_ give his name, only he requires the utmost discretion, and he has known you to employ…tale-telling gossips in the past." Burke raised one eyebrow, and his employee continued, unembarrassed. "As to your prior acquaintance, he claims you have a long-standing history, and that he is sure you must remember the person who once set—set fire to your desk, sir."

Burke dropped the paper on his desk and sat up straight. All at once the solicitor seemed very interested.

"What does he look like?" he asked, voice sharp.

"Young, tall— dark-haired—"

"—Good-looking?" Burke supplied, helpfully. Bletchley grimaced and nodded. "How are his manners?"

"Oh, _abysmal_ , sir."

Mr. Burke's clever eyes gleamed.

"Arrogant?"

" _Extremely_."

Burke steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair, expression shrewd and thoughtful—and most importantly, interested, which was rare to see. His clerk didn't know what to think—but his curiosity was piqued.

"Money?" the older wizard asked, after a short pause. "Does this young buck have any, would you say?"

"At first I didn't think so—he's dressed mighty shabby," Bletchley hesitated. "But—he's got a large sack of it on him, at least three hundred galleons. I wondered if he'd stolen it, only…well, a thief wouldn't wave it about, would he?"

Burke's eyes narrowed.

"Indeed not." He shifted in his chair. "Is that how you know about the gold? He was showing it off?"

The younger man stiffened.

"He threatened to throw it at my _head_ if I didn't let him pass."

This prompt reply was said without a trace of irony, but Burke could tell this had wounded his employee. Bletchley was willing to put up with a great deal from Mr. Burke's clients, but _this_ indignity was apparently too much for even him to bear without comment, and he looked quite put-out and harassed. A fleeting smile of understanding crossed Burke's face.

"Well—you had better do so, then," he said, cryptically. "Send him in directly."

"But, sir—"

"—As it happens, Bletchley, I do know our _guest_ , and I have little doubt he _would_ act upon that threat." Burke folded his hands in front of himself and gave his apprentice a canny look. "You'll forgive him his…impoliteness, I'm sure. He is not accustomed to being kept waiting."

Bletchley glanced back over his shoulder, then turned back around and asked, in a hushed tone.

"What _is_ he accustomed to?"

"Being waited _upon_." To his apprentice's surprise, Mr. Burke picked up his newspaper and languidly resumed his perusal of the affairs of the day. "A word of advice. If you are going to make a success of yourself in this trade, you must resign yourself to being treated like an insect by a certain sort of wizard."

"What sort is that, sir?"

Burke hard stare had a satirical edge.

"The sort far above you," the solicitor smartly answered. "You'd best fetch him. He'll barge in here in a second if you don't."

His assistant, picking at one of the unfortunate pustules on his cheek—a nervous habit that made him seem even duller than he really was—bowed and hurried out of the room again. Burke went back to the paper, content to amuse himself with the employment advertisements for the brief amount of time it took his interesting visitor to climb up the stairs.

He did not have to wait long for the telltale, restless sound of footsteps.

"Where the _hell_ did you pick up that idiot you've got guarding the door, Burke?" a loud and impertinent voice exclaimed from the direction of the doorway. "What happened to old Dawkins? Don't tell me he _snuffed_ it at last!"

The solicitor showed no reaction to this childish and thoroughly impudent greeting.

"Mr. Dawkins, regrettably, was in declining health and of a delicate disposition, and he decided it was best to quit the legal profession—" He folded his paper and laid it neatly on the desk in front of him. "He retired and moved to Cypress last the autumn, where he is probably at this very moment enjoying the sun and—relative peace that island affords."

His young guest let out a derisive laugh.

"Sounds like quite a life," he observed, fumbling with the fastenings of his old-fashioned cloak. Mr. Burke watched him remove it, revealing the robes his apprentice had mistaken for shabby—but what a more practiced eye could tell, even across the dimly lit room, were finely cut, tailored and made of the best material gold could buy. "I have it in mind to join him."

If he had taken care to have his robes cleaned and ironed, the notorious runaway heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black could've been said to be dressed in a manner that quite befit his station.

But then again…'taking care' was not something Sirius Black was generally known for.

"Well…I must confess, Master Black, this is _quite_ a surprise," Burke said, pulling a chair up for him with a wave of his wand. Sirius made no move to sit down, instead lingering by the door and staring at the older man with deep distrust and suspicion.

"The _last_ time we spoke you said in no uncertain terms that you believed all connection between us was at an end. I had despaired of ever seeing you again."

The dark-haired wizard at the door bristled.

"No such luck, I'm afraid," Sirius said, shutting it behind him with a snap. "Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger routine, Burke. I was surprised not to see Dawkins, and I didn't know if I could trust the new door-keeper. Who is he?"

"A stripling of no account." The wizened old man waved a hand, airily. "I beg you forget him."

"I'm more concerned with _him_ forgetting _me_."

Burke's eyes shone with interest, but his face remained languid.

"That can be arranged," he said casually. "Please, sit down."

His nostrils flared—Burke wondered, idly, if the young man realized how like his maternal grandmother he looked when he did that—and Sirius crossed to the chair and sat down across from him.

He watched the young man at his leisure. Mr. Burke observed, with faint amusement, how interesting it was to see the transformative power a difference in personality and temperament could have on the same features, similarly arranged. If you had put his father at twenty next to Sirius, you would scarce be able to tell them apart—but Burke found it difficult to imagine Orion Black ever looking at him with so much unfettered and undisguised dislike.

Even if he'd felt it, it would have disgraced him to let it show.

Sirius was examining a row of shrunken skulls on the desk—recent acquisitions from a disputed estate. He picked one up and waved it in Burke's direction.

"Former client of yours?" he asked, innocently.

Burke was so long used to the idiosyncrasies of the Black family that he scarcely blinked. Fifty years of service to the noble house had not been wasted on him—he had learned to keep his professional demeanor when faced with the most trying cases.

This boy was _nothing_ to his mother.

"As much as I would enjoy verbally sparring with you, _Master_ Sirius," Burke said, sanguinely. "I am a very busy man. I would be better if you cut to the chase, I think. This verbal wrangling is more in your father's line than yours."

At this comparison to his sire, Sirius's shoulders tensed, and he set his teeth and shot daggers in Burke's direction. The old lawyer was not effected in the slightest—having known his conversational partner since the midwife had presented him in the Drawing Room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place on a cold November day twenty years ago, it was difficult for him to take the glower and bared teeth all that seriously.

"This is all strictly off the record, Burke," Sirius said, finally. "Nobody can know I was here. _No one_."

"That goes without saying," Burke said, and there was a bare suggestion of offense in his tone. "All consultations at the legal offices of Burke and Selwyn are done with an assumption of the utmost discretion—"

"Right, so—"

"—Provided there is _also_ prompt payment."

Sirius stared down at the outstretched, open palm lying flat on the desk in front of him—then back up at the emaciated face of the serpentine lawyer. Burke said nothing, his hand didn't move—but Sirius knew, without having to ask, that he would continue to say nothing until that hand was filled—with gold.

The fork-tongued old bastard was expecting a _bribe_.

For about the eighth time in as many days Sirius cursed his stupidity. He should have anticipated this—of course _Belgravius_ _Burke_ would want to be paid for his silence, he was positively reptilian, no scruples or conscience at all.

He felt in his pockets—Orion's heavy bag of galleons dangled against his leg. Could he risk it—? Maybe his father had been bluffing and wouldn't actually check the amount he'd spent.

Or maybe he could get Burke to write him out a receipt for 'legal consultation.'

Sirius grimaced and let the gold clank back down. Coming here at all had probably been a mistake. He hadn't been thinking—seeing _that girl_ again in Madam Malkin's, on top of the unpleasantness with his father—it had put him in a reckless and restless mood, and after visiting the fourth shop in a row that didn't carry a fox-fur muff he was fully convinced that there was nothing for it—he had to do _something_ to put a stop to this. He was not going to let himself be dragged back into the family.

It was then he'd gotten the ill-advised idea of seeing the summit of wisdom when it came to Black family law—the family's solicitor of many years. If there was anyone who could help him get well and truly disinherited, it was _this_ wizard…this wizard who he'd forgotten was a notorious skinflint and who supplemented his income with bribery and coercion.

Of course, now that he was here, he would have to pay him off.

Sirius dug in his pockets and pulled out a hand of change—everything on him that was his own, a handful of galleons, sickles, knuts and a ten pound note, and tipped them inelegantly in Burke's hand.

"How much of your time does _that_ buy me?" he asked, lounging back in the chair.

Burke glanced down at the pile of pocked change in his hand. He pulled a hair-covered toffee off the ten pound note and looked up again.

"About three minutes," he answered, promptly.

Sirius slapped his hand on the table.

"Oh, come on—you're not going to squeeze me, are you?" he exclaimed, indignantly. "I thought you were in the business of providing legal advice to the Blacks. Doesn't Arcturus keep you on retainer?"

Belgravius rubbed his chin thoughtfully and blinked twice very slowly. He really was like a lizard.

"As a courtesy to all family members in _good standing_ , he does—" Burke rejoined, dryly. "But I was under the impression _you_ had washed your hands of the Blacks."

He gave Mr. Burke—still watching him across the table—a hard look. Was the old man playing ignorant? Maybe he thought Sirius really didn't know. Though, honestly—why the hell else would he be here? There had never been an inordinate amount of fondness between them. Orion had brought him here often as a child, in a half-hearted attempt to get him to take an interest in the slog that was 'family affairs', and Sirius had always done everything in his power to get them out of here as quickly as possible.

The pinnacle of his attempts at escape had been when, at age eight, he had set fire to the desk.

"Well—apparently _they_ haven't washed their hands of me," Sirius pointed out, sitting up straighter. "You can stop acting coy, Burke. If there had been a change in Orion's will, I know he would have brought it to you first. As there hasn't been, you're well aware I'm still my father's heir and in the line of Black succession, running away be damned."

Burke did not pretend to be surprised by this. Sirius hadn't expected him to—still, it would've been nice to have been speaking to a man whose face wasn't masked. At least he was capable of pissing off his parents—this man was a human glacier.

"That is all perfectly true."

"What I want to know is—" He scowled and leaned forward. "—Why the _hell_ didn't you think to tell me?"

"Had you inquired into this matter directly, I naturally would have answered," Mr. Burke said, unapologetically. "Any assumptions you made about your father's actions were your own affair."

"You _could_ have mentioned it when Alphard died, and you were handling that. You knew I would be interested—and you took a generous enough cut of my inheritance with all your 'legal fees'—"

The elderly gentleman shook his head, gravely. A grossly simplistic read on the situation, of course—another misapprehension he felt duty-bound to correct.

"I took no less than anyone else would have done, given—the challenges that bequest presented."

"By 'challenges'," he shot back, tartly. "I assume you're referring to the fact that it was a contested will, yet _another_ thing that slipped your mind."

Burke pursed his lips. He busied himself with meticulously repositioning the skull on his desk, but Sirius would not be deterred from the point.

"I suppose all the extra hours of billed work is how you justified ripping off a seventeen-year-old runaway," Sirius said, scathingly. "Let me guess— _my mother_ was the one who tried to fight me inheriting Alphard's money."

At last Sirius had succeeded in disquieting the older man.

"She asked me to look into grounds on which the will might be contested, yes," Burke answered, evenly. "Her brother's illness had been sudden, and she felt sure that given the nature of your…departure from the family, cutting you out had surely been Alphard's intention, and she could contest it on grounds of negligence." He looked grave. "I had the unfortunate duty to inform her that he had updated since that incident, and had in fact increased your portion of the bequest—making it a larger share than either of his nieces or your brother."

"How did she take that news?"

"Your mother's feelings are not my business to report," he said, coldly. "You would have to ask her yourself."

Sirius's smile turned grim. There was an angle here—perhaps he could take a leaf out of his father's book and work it. He cleared his throat.

"You know Burke—perhaps I _will_ ask her. I think she'd be interested to know you were taking my money as well as hers, during this scuffle between us….playing both sides against the middle. Do you _normally_ collect double fees in intra-family disputes?"

At last, he had him. A suggestion of financial impropriety—that wouldn't do at all. Burke tapped his wand against his desk, thoughtfully. If Sirius had not known better, he'd have thought the veiled threat he'd laid at Burke's feet had impressed him.

"You said you came here for legal advice," he finally said, in a brisk voice. "I think I can provide you that, pro-bono—as a one-time courtesy." He narrowed his eyes. "And then you can be on your way. We are both busy men, after all—no need for you to…linger."

Sirius marveled at himself—had that actually worked?

Burke steepled his fingers and smiled, coldly.

"What is it that brings you to my office today, Sirius?"

The man was all attention, now. Burke smiled in that polite, business-like, slightly unctuous style that he always used when waiting upon Orion or Arcturus. It made Sirius a little uneasy, to be treated like his father and grandfather—he'd have preferred the condescending 'Master Black' routine, or to be dismissed out of hand—but if he could get out of here with the answer he needed…

"Simple. I want to formally renounce all claims to the Black fortune and name." Both of the older man's eyebrows rose up into his receding hairline. "You're an expert. How do I go about doing that?"

"You don't."

He blinked.

"What do you mean, ' _I don't'?_ " Sirius repeated, lip curled. "There—has to be a way!"

Burke seemed to be rather enjoying himself.

"There isn't. There is no formal means of renouncing the title of 'heir' in your family. Tradition gives every eldest male in the direct line of succession the prerogative of naming his successor—from among his sons. By default, of course, the heir is always the eldest—" He nodded deferentially to his young companion, who only glared back. "—But a Black with more than one son could _theoretically_ name the younger his successor over the elder. It's entirely his decision, though." Burke's grin became quite toothy. "Blacks never have taken much stock in the wishes and desires of the young."

"Don't I know it!" Sirius grumbled, tapping his finger against the desk. "Why is this all so damn complicated?"

"A protective measure. It's the entail. Everything is tied up with the entail," Burke said, briskly pulling a large book of family law—identical to the one that Orion had given him a week earlier. "It guarantees the estate can never be broken up—and that someone will be designated as its caretaker. Under the current terms _you_ are set to inherit the bulk of the holdings—Grimmauld Place, _Noire_ House, all heirlooms in both those houses, the gold—"

"—And the title of head of the family?"

"Upon the death of your grandfather and father… _yes,_ you would be head, with all the duties and privileges that noble position of rank would suggest."

"Which are?" he asked, impatiently. He knew the answer, but like any masochist, needed to hear it.

Burke raised a hand and began ticking them off, one-by-one.

"Final say on every financial decision. Each Black has a monthly allowance they draw from—you would control the allotments. Who gets to live in which house, any purchases over a certain amount—" Belgravius had opened the book to the correct page, though he didn't seem to need to read it. "—Marriage agreements with other families would require your final approval, as well as dowry settlements for the girls. And of course, less formally—there is a tendency among your clan to defer to the head's judgment. A general assumption of deference and respect."

Sirius snorted. He had a hard time imagining his granny deferring to him on anything, or his uncle pounding on the flat door asking for advice about what Quidditch team he should throw money in with.

"Say I do inherit—what's to stop me from just…giving it all to my brother?" Sirius asked, curious, in spite of himself. "All the rights and responsibilities. Why couldn't I just make _him_ head in my place?"

"Regulus could act as your proxy—perform the duties and responsibilities in your stead—but it wouldn't actually make him head of the family. The enchantments are binding—every decision would be made on your behalf, and require your approval."

"Which would be, in effect—"

"—Your signature and seal on every single document."

He let out a string of profanities. Burke remained unmoved, eyes fixed on the young man with undisguised interest.

"What if I don't sign anything? If I refuse to have anything to do with it, cut off all contact—?"

"No bills or rent could be paid, no allowances given—all workings of the family would creak to a grinding halt." Sirius goggled at him. "It _is_ a remarkable amount of power to be held by one wizard. Neglect of duty in this case would be…catastrophic. The collapse of a noble magical dynasty." He took pleasure in having flabbergasted the young man. "You could turn your own mother out on the street, if you wished."

Sirius leaned back in his chair again. He was torn between anger and great confusion. He couldn't believe—how the _hell_ had his father let this go on for so long?

"Is that how it works now—the proxy thing?" Sirius asked, after a long moment of hard thinking. "My father does all the leg work, but my grandfather still has to sign on the dotted line?"

"Practically speaking—yes, Orion manages the day-to-day, and brings the documents to his father for approval. He is _acting_ head—your grandfather relies on him, and has for many years."

"So Arcturus must know," he muttered, half to himself. "About me still being the heir. He would have had to approve the change in succession, if it had been made."

"Not necessarily. Your father's will is, as I said, his own business. Your grandfather tends to give him a lot of leeway in this sort of thing—he could request to see the will at any time, but as to whether he has taking advantage of that privilege…" Burke smiled. "…I could not say. The family does guard some secrets, even from me."

The young Black heir sat there, stunned and reeling, for upwards of a minute.

"Was that all?"

Sirius's eyes turned flinty, and he stood up. It was obvious to Burke that he wanted nothing more than to leave as suddenly as he had arrived.

"Yeah, it was. I appreciate your erm, candor." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "You _are_ the final word on this, aren't you, Burke?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that…" The old lawyer trailed off with a delicate shrug. "Your grandfather Arcturus is an expert on family law, his knowledge might even surpass mine. If you're looking for a second opinion, I would recommend you go to him."

Sirius's smile became even thinner. There was not the slightest chance that he would ever willingly go to that man for help.

"Let's be straight with one another. I don't tell my mother you helped me wriggle out of her grasp, and you forget this conversation ever took place. That's a fair exchange, isn't it?"

Burke did not reply. Sirius waved a wand at the pile of his pocket change on the desk.

"I'll even let you keep that, as a token of my esteem." Sirius gave him a mocking bow. "I wish I could do you better, but…well, you of all people should know I'm hard-up for gold at the moment."

There was a loud clanking of gold when Sirius had bowed. Burke privately noted it, but didn't remark.

"Anything else?" he asked, calmly. Sirius stared at him—and then something like remembrance flitted across his face.

"There is one other thing," he said, curtly. "It concerns both our families. Your cousin Harriet has an opal necklace she inherited from her mother Belvina, who inherited it from her great-aunt Elladora Black. You know the one?"

Burke blinked and gave the younger man a look of effacing curiosity.

"I do." He tilted his chin back. "It is a one-of-a-kind piece, impossible to mistake."

"Does she have any documentation on its origin or provenance?"

"I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. It's possible." Burke's eyes narrowed. "Even likely. Why do you ask?"

"There's a concerned party interested in it. How much would it cost me to have you look into the matter?"

"More than you could afford."

Sirius sneered—icing on the cake.

"I had a feeling you'd say that." He glared at Burke, sizing him up. The man was staring at him with complete impassivity, waiting for an offer to be made—a haggling look if ever there was one. Sirius snorted. "Look, I don't have it now, precisely—but would you take an IOU?"

The elderly solicitor's stare was implacable.

"I'm good for it, Burke—" His face colored in irritation. "I'll pay you what you want— _Merlin_ , I'll even let you charge me interest!"

Mr. Burke tilted his head, considering his young charge for a moment—and he nodded. The Blacks were known for many unsavory qualities—but filching on their debts was not one of them, and Sirius was, in spite of his brash exterior, a Black through and through.

The lad wanted discretion above all else—and discretion was a costly business, as he well knew.

"I'll have my clerk dig up the papers for you and send them over." The elderly man returned to the papers on his desk, and added, almost as an afterthought. " _With_ a bill, of course."

Burke couldn't resist looking up to smile. Unamused, Sirius stomped across the room and wrenched open the door. He turned and looked at the elderly wizard with so much scorn that he would have done even his grandfather proud.

"Have a good Christmas, Burke. Enjoy counting your piles of ill-gotten gold, and take comfort in my solemn promise to _never_ visit you here again."

"The finest gift Master Black could give me," he replied, sincerely.

Sirius scowled and left without another word, slamming the door behind him.

Burke stared at the door for the better part of a minute, all thought of the paper and his half-eaten lunch forgotten.

"Argo!" he called, suddenly. "Come here."

There was a loud CRACK, and a house-elf with a pointed nose appeared at Burke's feet. He considered the creature staring up at him in expectation. He did not bother to ask if Argo had been listening at the door—he was always listening at the door.

It was his business to know his master's business—and be ready to act on that knowledge discreetly.

"Master called?" the elf asked, turning its pointed face up to the elderly man. He was still looking at the door. Burke blinked and turned, slowly.

"The boy who was just in here—did you mark him?" The elf nodded. "You know what to do, then."

The elf bowed so low his pointed snout touched the floor, and with another loud CRACK, vanished.

Burke leaned back in his chair and considered the crack in the ceiling, circumspectly. He drummed his fingers against the desk, expression thoughtful.

The old solicitor looked down at the paltry pile of pocket change that had been offered him for his silence, still lying on the desk. Lip curling, Burke picked up the colorful note bearing the face of the queen and examined it with idle curiosity.

There was the sound of light steps on the stairs and a knock.

"Come in, Bletchley."

The young man, looking relieved that the other had left, came in and shut the door.

Burke held up the bill.

"Have you ever seen one of these?" he asked, mildly. "Do you know what it is?"

The question confused the younger man.

"Of course sir—it's a ten-pound note."

The elderly man gave his apprentice a scorching look.

" _Never_ admit you know that in mixed company." Burke dropped the note back on the table. "Can you imagine how it ended up here?"

"No, sir." Burke gestured to the pile of coins, atopped with the Muggle currency. "What is _that_?"

"This, my young friend—was I believe an attempt to buy my silence." Burke smirked. "Rather cheaply, I must say. But the young man is, as he admits himself, 'hard-up.'"

"He tried to bribe you?"

"Oh, yes."

"But—but sir—he had three hundred galleons on him, _at least_. Why would he waste time giving you sickles and Muggle cash—"

Burke sighed and rubbed his temples. He truly was slow.

"Because the gold in question was not his to give, Bletchley. It was his father's money." Bletchley looked thunderstruck. " _I_ took that gold out of the family's vault myself, just yesterday. No doubt if young Master Black had been thinking more clearly, it would have occurred to him that his father wanted him to be discreet when carrying out whatever errand he has him on."

His clerk looked utterly bewildered.

"His father, sir?" he asked, confused. "Who is his father?"

"A wizard of some distinction," Burke answered, voice smooth as silk. "No doubt he would be displeased to hear that his son dropped by. I think that was the main reason for _this_ —" Burke picked up a knut and dropped it into the pile, laughing coldly. "—Much good it will do him."

"I don't understand, Mr. Burke."

"I didn't expect you to." Burke stood up, briskly. "I scarce understand it myself. This is a situation of some…delicacy. It requires finesse. We will monitor it very closely—if I think you can learn something from it, I will keep you apprised. For now—" He cleared his throat. "It would be better for you to contrive to forget it.

The finality of his tone indicated that this lesson in the fine art of the legal profession was at an end. Burke's clerk bowed and left his employer alone again.

It appeared the quiet Christmas he had been anticipating was not to be. No matter. He liked to keep busy, even over the holidays. This would liven things up.

Sirius had been quite right in his assumption that Arcturus Black kept him on retainer for the family's legal needs. Of course, what had not occurred to the young scion—and this was to prove a rather large mistake—was that with this retainer came an implicit expectation that any suspicious behavior of anyone in Arcturus's family was to be reported to the patriarch immediately.

His grandfather would be very interested in what had been spoken of this morning. Very interested indeed.

Burke picked up the shrunken skull on the desk and smiled at it.

A Christmas bonus would be quite welcome.

* * *

 _It has to be around here_ somewhere _._

Colette pulled out the gold ladies' watch _Grand-mère_ had given her for her birthday by its filigree chain and looked at its face—she let out a low moan. She was lost, and in ten minutes she would be _late as well_ , which according to her mother meant she already _was_. Why had she not written down the stupid address or name of the restaurant where they were meeting? It slipped straight out of her head the second Eugenie and she parted ways—as all boring but practical information invariably did.

The witch hurried down the wet street, heavy bag of dress robes slung over one arm, books over the other and peered into each and every window she passed. The parasol she had charmed to float over her head could barely keep up. Panic was setting in—not a single one resembled a restaurant of the caliber she would expect Narcissa and her aunt to frequent.

Most of the shops' windows were so filthy she could barely picture those ladies entering the establishments, let alone _eating_ in them.

Standing them up would be disastrous for her. If she insulted Mrs. Black, a _grande dame_ of English wizarding society, every door would be closed to her.

Worst of all: her mother would be _livid_.

Colette's slippers were hardly winter shoes, and she slipped and skidded on the wet pavement, nearly falling on the ground. The girl stopped to recover her balance—and it was then Colette saw a gap in between two shops she had not noticed in her first pass of this section of Diagon Alley.

She squinted through the mist and read the sign above the entrance with peeling letters—' _Knockturn Alley_ '—

Maybe the restaurant was down _there_.

Nobody had said anything about the place being off the main high street—but perhaps Narcissa had assumed she already knew, and that it would insult her to have such a paltry detail pointed out. She pulled out her wand and flicked it at the umbrella, which closed with a snap. Colette peered down the dingy alley—one half of a sign for a shop was visible, the name " _Borgin_ " and something she couldn't quite make out. The witch had a vague feeling of trepidation about this place, but in the absence of time and another plan—well, it was worth exploring, anyway.

Her old curiosity had also gotten the better of her. The name had a ring of danger to it.

She ducked under the low cobbled entrance to Knockturn Alley, gripped her shopping bags tightly. Afraid she would lose her nerve, she started to run. Colette hurtled down the narrow side-street, around the tight corner—

—Colliding headlong into a _man_.

A jumble of wrapped packages and bags—his and hers—flew out of their arms and tumbled to the ground. The paper sack full of Colette's books split open and they fanned out on the pavement, the box of her new dress robes popped open into a puddle.

The man let out a string of curses and bent down to collect his belongings, still swearing like a sailor. His arms had been completely full—a large book bag, dozens of wrapped packages now scattered to the ground.

"Oh _, mon dieu_ —I'm so sorry, sir!" She kneeled, all thought of keeping her cloak clean forgotten. "It is all my fault, I am lost and I was not looking where I—"

She looked up, caught sight of his face, and the words died in her throat.

It was the the man from Madam Malkin's—the handsome, impudent one. His arrogant face was already twisted in displeasure, when he recognized her, his expression became outright hostile.

"Oh, it's _you_ again!" he sneered, gray eyes flashing with malice. "—Well, that figures."

She felt her cheeks grow hot. The haughty look he was giving her somehow made him, inexplicably, more handsome.

"I said that I was sorry, sir," she answered him, cooly. "I will help you pick up your possessions."

Colette managed to infuse the honorific with just the right amount of sarcasm to make her meaning clear without being ill-bred. The stranger had no such qualms. He let out an undignified snort.

"I don't want your help," he shot back, with unexpected vehemence. "You've done enough damage as it is."

Colette felt a surge of indignation—what nerve! It was an accident—she had done nothing at all to him, who did he think he was?

Against his wishes, Colette stubbornly continued to pick up the scattered wrapped presents that had fallen out of his bag.

"I told you to stop that—" he snapped, noticing her gathering up his items as well as hers. "I can do it fine myself."

"I will assist you, as I was the one who—"

Her own words died with a gasp of shock.

They had both spotted it at the same moment. There, amidst the Christmas gifts and books and coins, lying in plain sight on the street was the one object that could succinctly explain his animosity towards her—it explained everything.

A silver hip flask, glinting innocently in a puddle on the pavement.

Colette's hand shot out and snatched it up. The top was bent, but she would have known this object anywhere. Her blue eyes widened, and she raised them slowly to his face—there she found exactly what she expected mingled horror, anger—and understanding.

"You _really_ like that thing, don't you?"

The imposter gathered up the rest of his packages and shoved them back in the bag that must've been charmed to fit them. He hauled himself to his feet, still eying her "That's the second time you've gotten it off me in half a day, Ms. Battancourt. What light fingers you have."

Colette slowly rose to her feet.

"I…I… _you…_ " she sputtered, feeling herself totally inadequate to the situation. She was amazed. "Mr. Svensson!"

He bowed, mockingly.

" _Yah._ In the flesh." His lip curled, if they weren't full of Christmas packages she was sure he would have shoved his hands in his pockets. As it was, he could only glower at her through the boxes and bags on his person. "I'll spare you the accent—as I know you think it's _rubbish_."

She didn't laugh, was too busy gaping up at him, studying his face—he was still glaring at her heatedly—and trying to reconcile the blonde Nordic man of thirty she'd spoken to last night with the striking, dark-haired Englishman before her now. She had thought he was younger than his years—but not this _much_ younger. The fact that the stranger from the shop was the imposter did help explain the odd feeling of his features being familiar to her.

They _had_ met, after all.

The imposter Svensson finished cleaning the mud off of his purchases—and to her surprise, stepped deftly around Colette without another word.

"Where—where do you think you are you going?" she asked, astounded, as he pushed past her and into the narrow passage she'd just come from.

"Away from you!" he called over his shoulder, briskly. "You can keep that. Think of it as a souvenir from England."

She glanced down at the flask still in her hand, then up again. He was already walking away.

"I do not _want_ to keep—" He ignored her and walked down the passageway. Colette snatched her purchases up from the ground and, face fixed in a mulish look of determination, followed him. "Wait!"

She was far slighter and less encumbered by shopping, so it was easy for quick-witted Colette to dart under his outstretched arm and block his way out to the main street.

"Get out of the way!" he demanded, curtly. She shook her head. "Come off it—clear out!"

The imposter waved his Christmas packages about, but it had less of an effect of intimidating the smaller French girl than his wand probably would have.

Colette ignored this vulgarism, and smiling somewhat ruefully, she held the silver object up to his face. Surprised, the young man's eyes widened.

"Here," she gently pressed it into his hand. "This belongs to you, I think. I wish to return it—I always intended to."

The young man stared down at the object in his hand, then back up at her. He looked so disarmed, Colette had to stifle a laugh. He noticed it and furrowed his brow, surly and cross. It made him look like a little boy who had been caught red-handed in the biscuit jar, and she could no longer hide her laughter.

"Enjoying yourself, I see. Like last night—you couldn't resist, could you?" He clenched his fist around the flask. "You _had_ to stick your nose in. Do you make it a habit to ruin peoples' evenings on the reg, or am I special case?"

" _You_ were the one who was sneaking about in disguise!" she returned, archly, and when she looked down at her cloak she noticed the dirt on it and hastily began to rub at it with her hand. He shook his head and snorted. "You cannot blame me if you got caught. I know nothing of such things—"

"—Oh, _spare_ me your goody-good, naive schoolgirl act!" he interrupted her, furiously. "I don't buy it for it a second. You suspected what _this_ was from the start." He dropped his bags and packages back on the ground with a clunk and waved the flask in front of her face. "And not _only_ did you pickpocket it from me like a seasoned pro, you then turned around and gave it to the _one_ person I told you I was trying to avoid."

His dramatic pronouncement of her crimes was followed by a loud huff. Colette stiffened.

"I didn't want to!" she exclaimed, defensively. "It happened so fast. He—came up and started to ask me questions about you, and before I knew it, he had taken it from me."

"You shouldn't have had it in the first place—"

Her temper stirred.

"Perhaps _you_ should have paid more attention to your pockets instead of my—my…" She trailed off, cheeks pink. Anger blunted, the man's mouth quirked up. No doubt he was remembering their fateful goodbye and the kiss he'd stolen—but the imposter didn't allude to it or tease her.

Her own expression softened.

"…I really did not mean for _Monsieur_ Black to take it from me," she said, quietly. "I swear."

The young man glared at her for another moment—and then the anger drained from him, and he sighed.

"I know," he said, voice rueful. " _He_ told me." His silver eyes glimmered with a smidgen of amusement. "He said he had to—practically wrest this from your hand. So I guess you defended me against the invading army. I suppose you're expecting a 'thank-you'—well, I'll have you know I only thank witches who _successfully_ help me keep my cover." He added, in a flat voice. "And who _don't_ steal my means of disguise out from under me."

Colette's own mouth twitched. She smoothed her skirts, a defensive gesture she had learned from her grandmother. It had the dual purpose of looking dignified and buying a witch time to think of a response to an impudent comment.

Her eyes flicked to the flask he still held up—evidence exhibit one of her crimes.

"I only took that because I…wanted you to come back and speak to me some more." And he had never told her who he was or the real reason he was there, which had been the reason she had approached him in the first place. Now that the shock had worn off, the anxiety in her chest at his fate had gone away, and Colette was curious about the rest. "I never saw you leave the ballroom. How did you get away?"

He deliberated answering her question for a bit. Colette could tell he was debating how much to give her—he had a very open and artless manner about him, quite different from most of her acquaintance.

"Oh—that was thanks to _Monsieur_ Black." He rolled his eyes. "After he caught me he…smuggled me out, real quiet like."

She had suspected something of the sort, when Orion Black had come to her at the very end of the party, insisting she hold her tongue. But it begged the question—

"But—why would he do that?"

His expression became unaccountably bitter.

"He wanted to hush it up," the imposter admitted, staring into the middle distance. "It would have embarrassed him immensely if I'd been exposed in front of all his family."

"Why?"

"Because I'm—" He jerked his head and ran a hand distractedly through his hair. "Oh, forget it. Never mind." He looked very young, and too tired to stay angry. His shoulders slumped, and he leaned against the wall in a rather roguish fashion. "Please don't frown like that at me—it stirs my conscience. Rest easy, _Mademoiselle_ Battancourt. I know it wasn't your fault. Someone had already tipped him off, he would've caught me one way or another." He laughed without humor. "It could have been a lot worse."

"You _really_ don't blame me?" Colette chewed her bottom lip. "Truly?"

She was not sure why she cared so much—perhaps it was because she had so rarely garnered the ire of anyone, the idea of being disliked by a stranger for having wronged him was unsupportable. She was determined not to let him go until she was sure of that—and a few other things.

He stared at her thoughtfully for a long time.

"No—I don't blame you."

The imposter's voice was sincere, and when he stared into her eyes—it was a direct gaze, very intent. The French witch was suddenly aware of how close they were standing. Colette felt her cheeks burn. She had little experience with men taking any genuine interest in her, and now that she knew what he really looked like…well, it made it a little more disconcerting to be scrutinized so. It flustered her—she wasn't sure if she liked it. Her mother's advice about avoiding handsome men came back to her—it seemed quite sensible, in the presence of one.

He blinked and broke eye contact, then moved his head from side to side, examining their odd surroundings.

"Well, Ms. Battancourt—I didn't expect us to meet again, so soon, given how we parted. And in another strange place—" He remarked on the grimy walls of the stone passage where they stood. "Fate is a funny thing."

It was. Right now it was giving her a second chance.

"I'm sorry about the cold shoulder in the shop. I was—surprised to see you." His mouth thinned—now he was laughing at himself more than her. "I thought you were staying with your great-aunt. How did you end up here— _sans_ chaperone?"

"I was shopping with her. We parted ways a little while ago." She gestured to the bags. Half a sleeve of the pink dress gown was still hanging out of the box. "I…am meeting a friend for luncheon and I—got lost."

" _Very_ lost." He jabbed a thumb behind him. "There are no restaurants that way, believe me. You were heading into Knockturn Alley. You know what's down there, right?" She shook her head. "A bunch of dodgy shops dedicated to dark magic. And sinister characters."

Her eyes widened and she peered around his shoulder again, craning her neck for a better look. A thought suddenly occurred to her.

"Like _you_ , you mean?" Colette asked, pointedly. He grinned. "What were you doing there?"

"Christmas shopping," he answered her, promptly. "You seemed like you were in a hurry just now. You practically ran me over. How late are you?"

She went rigid—the time!

"Very!" She pulled out the watch—it was already five past. "I lost my way."

"Maybe I can help you find it again," he said, amused. "I know every shop on this street. Where's this lunch of yours?"

"I don't remember the address—it's some sort of club, I think."

His eyebrows flew up.

"A club?" he repeated, then his brow furrowed. "You're not having lunch at the _Jarvey Club_?"

His disgusted tone of voice told her all she needed to know about his opinion on that establishment.

"Yes—that is the name!" she smiled. "Do you know it?"

The man tossed his dark head and let out an derisive snort.

"Of course. Number _Twenty-Eight,_ Diagon Alley. They put it there on purpose, to send a message about who is allowed in." He narrowed his eyes and gave her a distinctly superior look. "Well, well—you're lunching at 'the club'. _Very_ posh. Only members of a certain social set and their guests are allowed to dine _there_."

Colette frowned. The stranger's sarcasm was unmistakeable. He tilted his head, suspicion dawning on his face.

"Which friend is this, anyway?" the man asked, voice shrewd. "Who _exactly_ are you meeting?"

She hesitated.

"It's…Mrs. Malfoy…and also…" His eyes widened and then flashed with displeasure, and she plunged on, her voice infinitesimal. "…Her aunt, Mrs. Black."

At that addition, the imposter's face drained of all color.

"You're joking!" he said, flatly. "After all my warnings, you're having lunch with _them_? You know, I told you to stay away from that family for a _reason_."

The heat and color in Colette's face rose—both at the insult to her friend and her judgement.

"Narcissa and I had already made plans to spend the week together," she replied, a trifle cooly. "I do not break my engagements because of idle gossip from strangers."

His dismay was so dramatic that she might have told him someone died.

"You really do like to tempt fate!" he said, shaking his head in despair. "How did the _aunt_ get roped into this luncheon date, pray tell?"

"Mrs. Black is a very respectable lady—"

"—She's a poisonous _adder_ , and lunch with her is as good as _stepping_ on her."

This could not help but ruffle Colette's feathers, and she hoped her tart reply showed him how beneath her notice she thought his remarks about her new friend's aunt were.

"Narcissa is coming to stay with them in London, today, and she is hoping Mrs. Black will give permission for me—join her, as her particular friend."

A flash of surprise came over his face—quickly followed by disquiet.

"Narcissa's staying at Grimmauld Place until Christmas?" he asked, agog. "That's what this lunch is about—you're trying to scrounge an invitation to stay at their house as well."

Seeing no reason to lie, she nodded. Her companion clicked his tongue and gave her a look of knowing pity she found frankly, obnoxious—he was so high-handed!

"Hm. Well, better you than me. I wish you luck with that. Don't say I didn't warn you about them," she said, scornfully. "Anyway, you're not far. The restaurant is the beige building right across from Gringotts. Dining room is on the top floor. You'll have to say who you're meeting, they check at the door." He smiled, grimly. "I would escort you to your destination, but you don't want to be caught in my company by _either_ of those august ladies."

He held out his hand in the direction of the main street—no doubt his idea of a dismissal.

Colette remain rooted to the spot.

"Well—?" he asked, impatiently. "I thought you were late. Shouldn't you be hurrying along to see your beloved Narcissa and her barracuda of an auntie? You seemed eager enough to be on your way a minute ago."

Most people didn't think Colette took much after her mother—but when she stubbornly set her jaw, as she was doing now, the resemblance was uncanny.

"Not so fast." She said, eyes fixed firmly on his. She raised both hands to block him from passing. "I will go when you tell me your name. That is, after all, what I set out to find in the first place—and you got away last night without telling me."

To Colette's surprise, he actually laughed.

"You must be joking!" He gave her a head-to-toe once over, rascally grin back on his face. "You mean you haven't figured it out, yet?"

"Figured _what_ out?"

"Who I—" He stopped himself. A fresh wave of understanding passed over his handsome features, and he smiled and clasped his hands—not mockingly, but with genuine delight. "…You _really_ don't know."

Colette dropped her arms, bewildered at the stranger's behavior. How was she supposed to know? She had only been in this country for a few days, and she had never set eyes on him before today.

"Of course not—that is understandable, _n'est-ce pas_?" He beamed at her. "Why do you find this so amusing?"

"Nothing, it's just…comforting to me that you don't recognize my face, mademoiselle." He doffed an invisible hat at her. "Unfortunately for you, it makes me less inclined to tell you. For me, anonymity is a luxury, and I'm not willing to give it up at this juncture."

"I could still tell Narcissa about you sneaking about her house—and she might inform her husband or father-in-law."

The amused smile dropped off his face.

"Are you threatening me, Ms. Battancourt?" he asked, voice silky. Inside she was shaking like a leaf, but Colette took great care not to let it show.

"I am merely telling you the facts," she said, in a braver tone of voice than she felt. His smile became unusually grim.

"When it comes to satisfying your idle curiosity, you really _are_ a determined lass. You ought to be careful about that—it can be a dangerous quality in…certain circumstances." He appraised her again. "I think you're bluffing, personally—and anyway, you still don't know who I am, so I fail to see what you think you have on me."

"If I described to Narcissa the man that was impersonating Mr. Svensson last evening in her husband's home, I think she would know _exactly_ who he was," Colette said, steel in her voice. "And I think she would inform _Monsieur_ Malfoy—and you would not like that very much."

The man went very still. Inwardly, she smiled—she had guessed right. He did not want that at all.

"How would you describe me to Mrs. Malfoy?" he asked, ghost of a smirk on his. "I'd love to hear what you think of me."

Her face colored again.

"I would say—he was a tall, dark-haired man with gray eyes, nineteen or twenty, who is very cocksure and thinks highly of himself…and who claimed he knew the family well and wanted her not to know he was there," she rattled off, smartly. "I think that is enough for Mrs. Malfoy to go on. I have a feeling that, _whoever_ you are, you have a reputation for brazenness."

His mouth thinned. The young man stared into her eyes—Colette had the unfamiliar but unmistakable sensation of being sized up, and she blushed slightly, but didn't break the gaze. He was the first to blink—and then, to her astonishment, he let out a barking laugh.

"You drive a hard bargain, but I see you can't be deterred—you win, Ms. Battancourt. I will tell you who I am—" He lowered his voice. "—But it can't be here. The walls have ears. You'll have to meet me later."

"Where?"

"On the Charring Cross side of the Leaky Cauldron tonight, at eleven," he said, smoothly—the answer was so immediate that she blinked. "I'll take you some place where there's no chance of us being tailed."

"You want me to meet you at eleven a'clock…at _night_?" Colette goggled at him in wonder—was he insane—or, more likely, did he think she was? "Am I supposed to sneak out of the Blacks' home, when I am their _guest_?"

He had evidently been expecting her objections, for he already had an answer to them, as well.

"The basement fireplace is connected to the Floo network. If you make it down there, you should be able to floo to the Leaky Cauldron. There's an old servants' staircase that goes from the top floor directly in the kitchen—that should do the trick." She looked terror-stricken at the prospect. He tossed his head and shrugged, voice cool. "I thought you were brave and resourceful—not to mention clever. Or was last night a fluke?"

She gave him a feeble glare. This taunt was obviously calculated to provoke the young witch, and though she could see he was probably drawing her out in some fashion, he had correctly gauged that her interest was too aroused to refuse such a challenge.

"You will…really meet me?" She hesitated. "You are not—lying to me? You will not stand me up?"

He grinned, ruefully.

"If I _did_ , what's to stop you from tattling to Cissy?" The imposter Nord pointed out, in reasonable tones. "I'll even shake on it with you—provided you agree to something in turn."

Colette scrunched up her nose, instantly suspicious for this request—for she felt it, combined with his boyishly impudent smirk, evinced some mischief on his part.

"What is it you want?" she asked, slowly. His expression turned serious at once—she was surprised to find how much older he seemed when he looked that way. It was a face he hadn't quite grown into, yet.

"A guarantee—if for whatever reason you don't make our appointment tonight, you'll give up playing detective and let the matter go, once and for all. I think that's fair, don't you?" he asked, pushing up from the wall. "You can tell the folks back home you had a bit of excitement—but leave it be when it comes to everyone here."

He was getting more and more interesting by the minute, curse him. This was a stupid idea, but something about that challenging look in his eyes—

It got her back up.

"What do you say, Ms. Battancourt—" The stranger, still looking at her with that keen and penetrating interest that so disarmed Colette, stuck out his arm in her direction. "Do we have a deal?"

She looked down at his preferred hand, then back up in his face. Everything about this was so foolish, so out of her usual mode—Colette felt like she'd stepped out of her own life and into a novel.

The young witch found herself quite overcome with an unladylike desire to follow that sensation where it lead.

" _Oui._ We have a deal."

She took the hand and shook it. He had a firm grip and in that moment, Colette had the strangest feeling—that she had—perhaps unwittingly, though she felt as though she was in full control of her senses, so she could not see how it was so—agreed to far more than just meeting him clandestinely.

It was as though she had become this wizard's _accomplice._

* * *

Three times the waiter had come by to see if they wanted wine while they waited— _three times_. After this last pass, Cissy glared at the back of his retreating head, quite ready to hex him.

"I'm sure she'll be here soon, Aunt," Narcissa Malfoy soothed, in a far kinder voice than the one she'd employed to dismiss the impertinent man waiting on them (the standards here had gone downhill—Mama would be so upset when she heard). Her aunt narrowed her eyes over the top of her menu, and she added, pointlessly, "No doubt with a _very_ good explanation for her delay."

"I would hope so," Walburga murmured, without much feeling. "We were _lead_ to believe she had manners."

"She does, aunt. It's a very good family—one of the _best_ in France."

Her aunt made an indistinct humming noise and returning to staring at her menu, completely uninterested. Safely hidden behind her own menu, Narcissa rolled her eyes. Colette was very lucky that Walburga was distracted and tired out from the party the night before. She had a famously waspish tongue—the suggestion that Cissy's friend might not have good manners was getting off easy.

Still, she couldn't help but be a little miffed at Colette. Narcissa had taken special interest in the girl—showing up late to their luncheon date and leaving _her_ to make excuses to her strict aunt seemed a poor way of repaying her.

Walburga was in such a taciturn mood that until her friend arrived, Mrs. Malfoy had no one to talk to.

Bored, she let her gaze wander around the room. Narcissa had been coming to the Jarvey Club since she was a very small girl—it had not changed a jot in twenty years. The six-foot tall crystal statue of the weasel-like creature the establishment was name for still stood in the center of the dining room, leering out at the patrons. Cissy had always thought it had a slightly sinister look about it—she wanted to know why they couldn't eat at the Unicorn Club or the Kitten Club, had been informed by her father that such restaurants did not exist, and that little girls ought to be seen and not heard.

The Jarvey had been named so, according to local legend, because the creature in question was known best for repeating what it heard—and the founder of the establishment had hoped that it would become the centerpiece of all news and gossip in the respectable magical community. For a time it had been, no doubt. But its glory days had long since passed, and everything about the place—from the faded ochre sofa cushions in the lobby to the purple damask curtains in the windows—spoke to its status as a relic of a previous age. None of Cissy's friends _ever_ ate here—but it was tradition that whenever she came to London to stay at Grimmauld Place, she would go to the Jarvey for lunch with her aunt.

The Jarvey Club was an old-fashioned restaurant. Then again, Narcissa's aunt was an old-fashioned woman.

She peeked over the menu again. Her aunt had evidently decided what she wanted, for the older woman had set the cream and black embossed menu down and was staring at one of the light fixtures, tapping her fingers on the table cloth and looking just as distracted and out of sorts as she'd been at the party the previous evening. Her niece was actually a little concerned—Walburga's odd restiveness had some maternal cause, she was sure of it. Until this business with Regulus and the marriage was sorted out, her aunt would not be fit company to entertain.

She would have to convince Aunt Walburga to let Colette stay, if for no other reason than to have someone to keep her company. Without companionship, her week in London would be deadly dull.

Inviting Colette had actually been her husband's idea.

 _"_ _Take Ms. Battancourt along to London for the week—" he had remarked, his gray eyes glinting teasingly. "That will give you plenty of time to make her over in your image."_

 _"_ _I'll have you know I like my friend perfectly well as she is," Narcissa replied, with a sniff. "I am only helping Colette—reach her full potential."_

Lucius had laughed in that knowing, fond way that said he was humoring her. Then he had kissed her on the palm, and she had quite forgotten that she was annoyed he had suggested she go to town in the first place.

Narcissa put a hand on her stomach and rubbed it, absently. Mama said it was because she was with child that she was feeling so emotional, and that a good wife must accept that her husband had duties and responsibilities that had nothing to do with her, and that once she was done with _her_ primary duties—providing her husband with children and caring for his house and estate—she must find her own projects to occupy her time.

Well, she was taking Druella's advice, and busying herself with her latest project—helping her new friend establish herself in England.

It had become clear to Narcissa very quickly that Colette Battancourt needed her help rather desperately.

Considering she came from a celebrated and distinguished family, the French witch's manners were _shockingly_ provincial. The girl had such an unguarded tongue—when they had first been introduced the summer before, Colette had told Cissy everything she could think about herself—some details better left unsaid. She was lucky her English friend only wanted the best for her. The cattiest Slytherin girls would've laughed themselves sick at her stories of chasing pigs around her father's farm, or the admission that she preferred jotting down bits of interesting conversations she heard on spare handkerchiefs and napkins to dancing.

She was also hopeless at showing herself off to her best advantage (had she not heard of cosmetics? Beauty potions?), and her fashion left much to be desired—that would be the domineering mother's fault. From what Narcissa had gathered through her French sources, she was _completely_ under Madame Battancourt's thumb, and the Frenchwoman's sensibilities about how her daughter should dress were decades out of date.

Most of all, she was utterly clueless about English society, and apt to be taken advantage of—especially since her mother had sent her over to make a marriage.

But in spite of all of these foibles, Mrs. Malfoy liked the younger girl—she had a lot of potential, which was more than could be said of most young witches Narcissa socialized with. And Colette's inexperience was not all to her detriment, for she had a kind of artless candor that Cissy found refreshing. Even if she asked too many questions, at least they came from a place of genuine curiosity. She was also clever, picked things up fast—and she was genuinely interested in what Narcissa had to say, not jealous, like many of her former 'friends' had grown since Cissy's marriage to the most eligible bachelor in all of England.

Regulus, poor dear, was the _second_ most eligible—and Narcissa was determined that he should marry someone who wanted him for more than just the gold he would inherit or his position. He was growing more confident, true—thanks to Lucius taking an interest in her baby cousin, he had lost a lot of the old timidness—but there were many artful and scheming fortune-hunters in the world, and he still had the tendency to let himself be taken advantage of.

Colette wasn't like those girls. She was sensible and well-bred—if a bit green—and once she got some polishing up, Ms. Battancourt would be well suited to join the Black family.

It could be an advantageous match on their end, as well, if it came off—even if Colette _was_ from a minor branch of the Battancourts, it was the kind of foreign alliance that the Blacks would benefit from.

More than all that, though—Narcissa was lonely for female companionship.

Bella and she had grown distant in the years since she'd become Mrs. Lucius Malfoy. Her sister's own marriage didn't appear to be going well (not that Bellatrix would ever confide that in her, Narcissa had to rely on her husband to allude to these things) and she sometimes wondered if her elder sister wasn't a little resentful of her for being as happy as she was. Another young woman in the family—one who could appreciate the pressures of _their_ station as —that would've been welcome to her.

If she was being truly honest with herself—and that was a rarity—the young Mrs. Malfoy would have admitted that she had fixed her heart on having Colette as a kinswoman because she reminded her so much of another young, brunette witch with soft eyes and a generous heart—the one who she'd not seen in nine years, and who had left a gap in her heart that stubbornly refused to be filled.

 _Don't think about Andromdeda._

She was spared this disquieting thought by the arrival of a bedraggled but familiar figure at the door. Colette rushed over to them, flustered and half-soaked through.

"Oh, Narcissa—Mrs. Black—" Cissy tried not to wince at the mud streak on the girl's cloak. "I am so, so sorry—I lost my way, I was going up and down the street looking for the place, and I got so turned around—"

"— _See_ , Auntie?" She interrupted her gibbering friend, lest she dig herself in any deeper. Colette fell silent at once. "It's just as I said. A silly mistake—Ms. Battancourt just lost her way."

She turned back to her friend and delicately patted her own hair, indicating that Colette should head to the lavatory as soon as possible to fix hers.

Walburga Black, to her niece's surprise, barely batted an eyelash at the half-soaked through witch. At the commotion of the French girl's approach, Mrs. Black turned her head. She gave the girl a once-over, sharp eyes critically appraising her.

"It is very good you found it again, I suppose." Walburga's eyes lingered on the bags stamped with Madam Malkin's shop's brand on them. "I would guess you dawdled at the dress shop, looking at all the gowns."

"No, madam—at the bookshop," Colette answered, promptly—and if the blush that followed her baldly honest correction of Mrs. Black's assumptions was anything, without _thinking_ , either.

Narcissa shifted in her seat, annoyed. Honest to a fault, this girl—but then her aunt's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She exchanged a look with her niece, across the table—and lifted her wand and pulled out a chair. She nodded at Colette to sit. She obeyed at once, after shooting her friend a look of nervous confusion.

"Hmph." The Black matriarch sized the girl up—for the first time since they'd met the night before actually taking an interest in her. Narcissa sucked in a breath—this next moment was critical. Under this scrutiny, Colette nervously fidgeted—but to her credit, she never took her eyes away from the elder woman's. "Well, that's just as foolish. _Still_ …" She picked her menu back up and flipped a page, casually. "I like frankness in a witch. Mind you keep an eye on the time for the week you're staying with us. We value punctuality in our family."

Ms. Battancourt's face brightened, and she nodded vigorously and turned to beam at her friend. Narcissa smiled back, pleased that this first hurdle had been passed—Aunt Walburga approved—or at least didn't disapprove. Narcissa observed, happily, that her friend's face was flushed in a manner most becoming—already Colette was blooming under Cissy's tutelage, clearly.

Narcissa smiled secretly to herself. Phase one of the plan was complete.

She was confident that after a week spent under her roof, her aunt would see the wisdom of having Colette Battancourt for a daughter-in-law.

* * *

 **There is still a chance to vote for the prequel to this story for the 2018 Marauder Medals! From now until Monday voting is still open. If I win I may post a little holiday themed one-shot in this universe as a thank you to my readers...please see my profile for more details. :) And as always, thank you for your comments.**


	8. Chapter 8

_"_ _You are omniscient as ever, Dumbledore."_

 _"_ _Oh no, merely friendly with the local barmen," said Dumbledore lightly._

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 8**

* * *

The snow was falling fast and thick outside the windows of his study when three short, sharp knocks on the door interrupted Albus Dumbledore's solitary revery. An open letter lay on the desk in front of him; the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was perusing it, his electric blue eyes keenly scanning the page. He raised his face from where it was bent over the parchment—his keen eyes showing no surprise at the interruption.

Evidently, this visitor was expected.

He smiled enigmatically. The sound of a throat being cleared from somewhere above Dumbledore's right shoulder drew his attention from the door. The old wizard looked around and up at the source of the pointed sound. Phineas Nigellus—in his Hogwarts portrait and doing a comically poor job of pretending to be asleep—had one of his sly eyes half-open and was watching the door keenly, practically leaning out of the frame.

There was another series of knocks, more forceful than the first. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, and they flitted back to the door.

"You may enter," he said, in a calm voice.

It flung open, and a middle-aged man wearing a traveling cloak and an expression of utmost distemper strode into his office. The wizard slammed the door shut behind him and marched into the study, stopping a few feet from the desk, his shoulders squared in a combative posture. The dark-haired gentleman was red-faced—whether this was from the inclement weather or his anger, it was difficult to say—and the look he was leveling in the direction of the older wizard could only be described as 'livid'.

Safe behind his desk, Professor Dumbledore smiled.

"Ah—Orion." He folded his hands in front of him, assuming a pose of polite curiosity. "I thought I'd see you today."

"Oh, you _did_ , did you?"

Mr. Black's voice was so cutting it could have been used to sharpen knives.

Most men would have been disquieted at such a display of open hostility from Orion Black—he was generally thought an imposing wizard, on the rare occasion he had been provoked—but Dumbledore was not most men. The old man hummed cheerfully and nodded.

"Oh yes," he assured the younger man in an affable voice, twiddling his thumbs. "Though, I must confess, I _did_ think it would be a trifle earlier."

His visitor looked as though he'd swallowed turpentine.

"I do hope I haven't kept you _waiting_ ," Orion replied, stonily. "I had many urgent matters to attend to this morning, else I would have been here sooner, I _assure_ you."

His sarcasm was exquisite—but Dumbledore had a natural tendency to gently tease, and he was just as determined to be courteous as the other man was to be rude.

"Not at all." The sincerity of his smile and tone only seemed to incense Mr. Black further, for the grip on his wand tightened, visibly, and his narrowed eyes flashed with displeasure.

Professor Dumbledore drew out a chair for his former student with his wand. Orion stared at the old man, then the chair, deliberating over the silent invitation for a moment—before slowly sinking down into the seat across from Dumbledore. His back was ramrod straight, and he was still glaring daggers—though in the restrained and well-bred sort of way that those who knew him only be reputation would have said lent to his natural aura of dignity.

Dumbledore watched him from behind his desk, face placid, expressionless—his eyes keenly penetrating—and all at once Orion felt his anger drain away. The long list of grievances he had taken great pleasure in rehearsing in his head on the walk to the castle from the village now seemed faintly ridiculous—in the face of that enigmatic smile, Orion felt feeble and foolish, more like the schoolboy whose Transfiguration teacher had once been so patient with him when he had been incapable of turning his canary into a pocket-watch, and had assured him that he would not be sending any owls to his father, and that with a little practice he would certainly be able to master the spell.

This man had been _disarming_ him since he was eleven-years-old—he had hated it _then_ and he hated it _now._

It was as if those blue eyes could see straight through him.

"Would you care for a drink?"

Orion opened his mouth to give him a curt suggestion of where he could stick his drinks—but Dumbledore wasn't waiting for an answer, had already pulled out a bottle of mulled mead and two glasses from the drawer in his desk. Before he knew what was happening a tumbler of amber liquid had been poured and pushed in his direction.

"Do I _look_ like the sort of man who drinks in the middle of the afternoon?" Orion snapped, irritably, staring down at the unwanted glass of liquor.

As the elder man poured himself one, he thoughtfully considered the question.

"No—but looks _can_ be deceiving." His mustache quivered. "You don't seem like the sort of man who would frequent the Hog's Head, but that didn't stop you from having three glasses of brandy there this afternoon, did it?"

Something flickered behind Mr. Black's flinty eyes—and his shoulders slumped. He glared at his former teacher—but with annoyance more than anger. He didn't bother asking Dumbledore how he'd been found out.

"I have never set foot in that establishment in my _life_ before today," Mr. Black said, voice heavy with irony. "And I do not intend to _ever again_."

He drank from the glass Dumbledore had given him. The liquor was very good, which only served to annoy him further.

"You didn't care much for the place?" his former teacher asked, casually. Orion let out a humorless laugh.

"Have you _been_ there?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "It smells like an animal stall and the glasses look like they haven't been washed since my grandfather's day."

"It is a bit—rustic," Dumbledore agreed, smiling over his glass. "I would think the Three Broomsticks would be more to your taste."

"I wanted solitude," Orion muttered, darkly. "And as no one I know would be caught dead in that filth hole—"

"—There is _one person_ you know very well who goes there."

Orion looked up from his drink, expression unaccountably bleak. The energy between the men shifted, minutely. The mead had been an invitation to let his guard down, and he had done so—for a moment, but the reminder of _why_ he was here and the person that lay between them had the opposite effect of what had been intended—for when reminded of these facts, Mr. Black remembered himself, and the door shut once more.

They sat with their drinks in a heavy, oppressive silence. Dumbledore never took his eyes off the younger man, and he gave no sign of wishing to preempt him in breaking that silence.

This was Orion's party, clearly.

"As you were expecting me, I can only assume you spoke to that Auror."

"I did," Dumbledore answered, simply.

"And what did he tell you?"

"A very interesting—albeit _incomplete_ —story of the night's events," the headmaster said, eyes twinkling. "Frank was unclear on a few things, naturally. I think I was able to, ah—glean what he could not, though I remain fuzzy on several points."

Dumbledore, to his old pupil's surprise, did not directly ask Orion to clear up these 'fuzzy points'—he seemed rather unconcerned as regarded these paltry details. In fact, he looked as though he was fighting a smile. Orion gripped the glass—he had to fight the temptation to hurl a third object into a fireplace in as many days with every ounce of his strength, and he had a feeling Dumbledore could tell.

He downed the rest of the drink in one and slammed it back on the table, hard.

"Would you care for another?"

"I would be _delighted_ ," Orion spat, through clenched teeth. Dumbledore refilled the glass for him, face still unaccountably bland, though there was a certain unmistakable air of expectation that lingered about him. He seemed to be waiting for something in particular from Orion, a specific line of inquiry, but Mr. Black was in no mood for playing games.

He took the glass and nursed it in one hand. The liquor had gone to his already unclear head, and he was feeling far bolder than he had any right to. Dutch courage could do much for a man, particularly one who had been pushed as hard as he.

"Would you satisfy me on a point that has baffled me for some time?"

Dumbledore lowered his glass. The reflection of the whiteness from outside glinted off his spectacles, obscuring his eyes.

"Certainly," he said, voice light. Orion tapped a finger against the edge of his tumbler.

"The night our unfortunate association—and all that entails— _began_ ," he started, his voice tight. "Did you or did you _not_ order my son to ingratiate himself with us?"

Dumbledore did not bat an eyelash at the question, couched in such unflattering tones it could only be understood as an accusation. He pondered it for the appropriate amount of time before speaking, making it impossible for Orion to guess whether he'd anticipated the question and prepared an answer in advance.

"That is not how I would describe our conversation."

Mr. Black sneered.

"Then how _would_ you describe it, pray tell?"

Dumbledore steepled his fingers—a circumspect pose.

"I recommended to Sirius that, given the unusual and delicate circumstances that had lead to his reunion with you and your wife—" Orion made a soft noise of impatience; he ignored it. "—He ought to make a concerted effort to be patient, kind and respectful to you both in what was sure to be a—difficult time for your family."

At this extraordinary statement, Mr. Black let out a bitter laugh.

" _That's_ what you told him to do, eh?" He leaned over the desk and snatched up the glass again. "He told me as much. At first I didn't believe him."

He gave him a look of deep distrust.

"I would ask you what you thought you stood to gain by giving him such orders, but I have the oddest feeling you have no intention of telling me. Not that I need you to." He took another sip from his drink. "It doesn't take much imagination to see."

Dumbledore did not reply or seem discomforted by the implicit accusation. He continued to watch Mr. Black intently. Orion, unused to scrutiny that he could not guess the motive behind, found himself left unnerved by it.

And more irritated than ever.

"On the subject of his carrying out your _task_ —" The middle-aged wizard continued, scowling into his cup. "It _might_ interest you to know that he's making a pretty poor showing of it."

"In what respect?" Dumbledore inquired, politely.

Orion laughed again—this time a note of hysteria creeping into his voice.

"In _every_ respect!" he said, slapping the table—Dumbledore didn't even have the decency to flinch, which only served to incense Orion further, and he railed on, completely unconcerned that the sound had jarred awake half a dozen dozing former headmasters and mistresses on the walls. "Over the past week that boy has made it _abundantly_ clear he can hardly _stand_ to be in the same room with us. He's in a constant state of low-level war with his mother, who is only happy to oblige him in his love of melodramatic theatrics—unsurprising, as he inherited the propensity for it from her. We can scarce make it through a meal without a scene! And as for _last night_ —" He paused mid-tirade to inhale a shuddering breath. "—I cannot even _begin_ to describe the ignominy he has put me through in the past fifteen hours."

Mr. Black finished his soliloquy with another open-palm slap on the table and a _harrumph_. Dumbledore coughed—if the thought occurred to him that Sirius might have inherited some of his tendency for high drama from his father, he wisely chose not to comment.

Professor Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, digesting his guest's words. Orion felt his face flush slightly when he realized that more than one portrait was staring at him.

"What occurred at Malfoy Manor yesterday was… _unfortunate,_ in many respects," he said at last.

Orion laughed, coldly—that the old man's bland tone did not do justice to the gravity of the situation in his mind was obvious.

"' _Unfortunate in many respects_ '—by Salazar, you're almost as much of a master of understatement as my son!" Mr. Black ground the bottom of his glass into the wood grain of the desk. "What the _hell_ do you mean by it, sending _him_ to act as your _spy_?"

Three glasses of brandy and the equivalent of a tankard of mead had evidently given him the courage needed to describe his 'ignominy' of the previous evening, for Orion did not bother waiting for the old man to answer before he pressed on.

"My eldest son has no business spying on _anyone,_ let alone passing himself off as an influential foreigner in a room full of half the wizards in the country—not to mention his own grandparents." Dumbledore's mustache twitched, but Mr. Black was too caught up in his diatribe to notice. "For God's sake, he's barely more than a _boy_ —"

"—Sirius may be young—but he _is_ a grown man," Dumbledore corrected, quietly. "He has been of age for over three years, and in his time in the Order has proven himself to be intelligent and resourceful—"

"—He is an insolent _child_ without a shred of self-preservation," Mr. Black seethed. "No doubt the thrill he takes in recklessly endangering his own life at every turn has been useful to _you_ , but it hardly proves he's a man ready to be sent on _espionage missions._ In fact, I can think of few things that foolish cub is _less_ suited to. He would jump to his own death if he thought the act would give him a moment's fleeting excitement. He has all the subtlety of a dying Jobberknoll."

Albus Dumbledore's smile was a little too understanding.

"I doubt being caught in the middle of a mission by his father showed Sirius at his best," the old man said, kindly.

"I'm sure it _didn't_ ," Orion replied, moodily, and he took another generous helping of his drink. "Unless he makes it a habit of giving cheek to the wizards who normally catch him sneaking about in disguise on your orders."

The recollection of things that had been said to him the night before, Mr. Black fell into a black silence.

Dumbledore sat up straighter, laying his palms flat on the desk, expression more serious.

"You have never known him as a man…and he has only known you as a boy," he said, in a tone of voice too pointed for Orion to ignore. "It's only been a week. Give yourself time to adjust—"

"I did not come here to listen to you pontificate on how _I_ should manage _my_ family!" Mr. Black hissed back, venomously, and he slid the glass back across the wooden surface of the desk so hard the elder man had to lift up his hand to catch it, lest it fall to the floor and shatter. "Do you think I give a tinker's _damn_ what you think?"

"Oh, no," Dumbledore replied, serenely sliding the glass back towards his companion. "I imagine your unusual candor has more to do with that mead than any concerted effort to confide in me—though you are welcome to, of course."

The headmaster twiddled his thumbs innocently. His own glass remained untouched, and it was now impossible for Orion to pretend not to notice the smile not quite hidden by his beard.

"Do you—do you find this _funny_?" Mr. Black demanded, feeling a sudden lurch of courage that was two-parts alcoholic and one-part righteous indignation.

"A little," Dumbledore admitted, bluntly. Orion swelled like an angry bullfrog. "I must confess—though I have often had parents in that chair criticize me over how I run this school, I have never had one take me to task for how I run the Order of the Phoenix. There is a certain—novelty to it."

Orion's eyes flashed—he was being _laughed_ at.

He rose from his chair—the slight sway in his step somewhat diminishing the impression he had no doubt hoped to convey over the seated old man, who looked up at him with only mild interest.

"I am not going to stand here and be insulted by you," Mr. Black said, coldly. "I did not come here for that—"

"—No, you did not," Dumbledore sighed and shifted in his seat, slightly. "As engaging as I've found our conversation up until now, I would not want to keep you any longer than is absolutely necessary." He pushed his spectacles up his crooked nose, suddenly looking very grave. "We ought to come to the main point."

Mr. Black stared down at him, lip curled with a disdain no more impressively regal for all the color in his face.

"And what _is_ the point, in your mind?" he asked, sarcastically. "Why is it you _think_ I've come?"

Dumbledore smiled up at him—but there was a steeliness in his eyes now that had been hitherto absent.

"To give me that memory you have bottled in your pocket, of course."

Mr. Black's whole body went rigid, as if he'd been petrified. The fury drained from him like water in a sink. For over ten seconds he said nothing, face frozen, mouth agape—but Dumbledore was nothing if not patient, and the elderly wizard watched the shock on his face turn to dismay—and then harden into the haughty dislike he had come to expect from members of the Black family.

With a single, jerky motion, Orion reached into his robes and pulled out a neatly corked glass vial. A silvery gaseous liquid swirled inside.

He dropped it on the desk. The glass had evidently been charmed not to break, for it clattered on the walnut surface and rolled towards the old man, still in-tact, innocently glinting in the reflected light from the snow-covered windows.

"Take it, then," he said, coldly. "With _my compliments_."

Mr. Black turned his face away from the desk and reached around for his cloak. He pulled it off the rack and fastened it with fumbling fingers—muttering oaths and curses under his breath. When at last he looked up, the Black patriarch found that Dumbledore had picked the vial up and was studying it, thoughtfully.

Then—to his extreme chagrin, the old man set it back down on the desktop and slid it towards Orion.

"You certainly came a long way to deliver this." Dumbledore tilted his head, considering him. "Did you extract it last night?"

Mr. Black nodded, curtly, drying the edges of his still sopping wet cloak with his wand. He had—after which he had watched it in his own pensieve half a dozen times before falling asleep on the sofa in his study right before dawn. This respite had been fitful and brief.

"I am curious," Dumbledore said, blandly—holding it up to the light. "Why you didn't spare yourself the trouble of the journey. Did Sirius not ask you for it this morning, when he came to see you at Grimmauld Place?"

Again, Orion's face froze—this time the anger that followed the look of shocked displeasure was immediate.

"Have you spoken to my son?" he asked, smoothing the front of his robes.

"No—" Dumbledore looked down his crooked nose through the glasses perched there, eyes twinkling. "But I gather _you_ have."

The glacial silence between them was punctuated by a sly cough—Mr. Black jerked his head up towards the noise. The portrait of Orion's great-grandfather was no longer pretending to be asleep at all. He glowered up at his ancestor, pulsing with resentment—apparently he was not entitled to privacy, even in his own home! Phineas Nigellus merely raised an eyebrow at the look, as if challenging his descendent to protest this gross breach in family etiquette in mixed company.

Orion's nostrils flared—but the thought of quarreling with the snide painting in front of Dumbledore was apparently too much of an added insult to his dignity to contemplate. The patriarch had argued enough with living family in the past day to last a lifetime—he didn't need to add deceased relations on top of that.

"'Speaking' is a generous word for what occurred," Mr. Black said, dryly, turning back towards Dumbledore.

He didn't feel any need to elaborate—and Dumbledore didn't ask him too, thankfully.

"You've had that vial in your pocket since very early this morning, I'd guess," Dumbledore conjectured, idly. "Given that you inconvenienced yourself immensely by coming all this way, I'm curious why you didn't just give it to Sirius when he asked you for it."

"He called me a spineless hypocrite with no principles." Orion answered, coldly. "After _that_ I was less than inclined to humor his childish demands."

To Dumbledore's credit, he didn't try to soften the blow of the admission, or offer feeble assurances that could not have been _less_ welcome coming from his quarter.

"Well," Mr. Black said, brusquely, and he straightened up as best he could. "Now that you have what you wanted, I'll—take my leave of you."

He started awkwardly toward the door, still half-turned in the direction of the desk, keeping an eye on Dumbledore. The lack of reaction unsettled him, and no matter how desperate he was to leave the place and company, he could not help but feel that it was extreme weakness to leave without satisfaction—or at least acknowledgement.

The wily old wizard was clearly determined not to give it. He remained seated and clam, and showed no signs of gratitude at being given what had supposedly been worth risking Orion's son's neck to attain.

In fact, Dumbledore showed every sign of being more interested in Mr. Black himself than anything he had to offer.

Orion was quite fed up with the scrutiny, and was about to tell Dumbledore to stop looking at him that way when his former teacher smiled and rose from his desk.

Dumbledore picked up the open letter, still lying on next to his glass, and held it out for Orion to take.

He eyed the parchment with deep suspicion.

"What is that?"

"It's a letter from my informant—" The professor paused. "The one who gave me the intelligence that lead to last night's operation. I think you might be interested in reading it."

Orion's distrust turned into stormy anger.

"Short of an apology for what I endured last evening," Mr. Black replied, bluntly. "I really don't give a _damn_ what your informant has to say."

The corner of Dumbledore's mouth twitched up, and his electric blue eyes darted towards Phineas Nigellus, who was leaning forward in his frame, trying to read the words on the page.

"Alas—no such luck." Dumbledore's hand remained outstretched, and he continued, off-handedly. "But I wouldn't rule it out. As I believe you're having dinner with him this evening, you may _yet_ get the verbal contrition you think you're owed."

The color drained from Mr. Black's face.

In three bounds Orion had crossed the room and snatched the letter out of his hand. He pulled it open, started down at the parchment—only to find the familiar script he would have recognized anywhere.

It was, after all, very much like his own. They had had the same tutor. Fingers shaking, he turned it over to look at the front.

It had been sealed with red wax—the Black family crest neatly stamped in the center.

"As you can see, you are not the only Black who is unhappy with me." Orion's eyes flew across the page—he recognized the handwriting, but the forcefulness of the prose, the nature of the demands—all _that_ was completely foreign to him. Surely his youngest could not penned these words only hours earlier, in the bedroom of his brother's dingy flat. "Regulus informs me in no uncertain terms that until I swear to him, by return owl, to never endanger his brother's life in such a way again, he will give me no more intelligence."

Mr. Black collapsed back into the chair, all thought of his dignity forgotten.

"No more?" Orion repeated. "But I told him not to—" He trailed off, eyes still raking over the words—barely able to comprehend their meaning. "—How…how many more of these do you have?"

Dumbledore bent down and opened a drawer—he pulled out a stack of at least six letters. Orion leaned on the desk and rubbed his forehead, as though the hangover he could expect from the mead had already come.

"I believe he slips them in with his correspondence to the rest of your relations," Dumbledore said, casually. Orion was completely white-faced, now. "Your owl appears to be quite intelligent. He figured out very quickly where the letters addressed to 'Uncle Albus' ought to go."

Dumbledore held the additional correspondence out to him—proof of his younger son's disobedience—the Black patriarch wearily waved the stack away. He didn't need to read the letters to guess the sort of thing they contained. He gripped the back of his chair, as if he needed it to prevent himself from sliding onto the floor.

Professor Dumbledore sat back down. His expression was less fixed, more open—Mr. Black could see now that he had been anticipating this moment since Orion had walked in the door, and now that it was over, the cards were on the table.

The real substance of the audience could begin. He could scarce imagine a situation he was less prepared for.

The silence stretched between them again. Dumbledore thoughtfully considered his guest.

"I think your younger son takes after you a great deal."

Orion's eyes flicked back up to that maddeningly calm lined face. _That_ had not at all been the comment he was expecting.

He sighed and rubbed his temples.

"It's an odd thing—but you're the second person in as many days to tell me so."

"Who was the first?"

"My sister said the same thing to me, last night." Bone-tired, he leveled a weak glare in the general direction of Dumbledore. "I don't know what she meant by it."

Mr. Black threw the letter from his son back on the desk between them, next to the bottled memory.

"Lucretia is generally known for speaking her mind," Dumbledore remarked, taking a sip from his own glass. "Didn't she tell you?"

Orion let out a short, hard laugh.

"Her thoughts are somewhat in line with my elder son's," he remarked, wearily. "I believe she thinks Regulus suffers from an excess of soft-hearted complacency which he has had the _misfortune_ to inherit from his father."

Dumbledore quietly scoffed. Orion looked up over the empty glass, mouth twisted in an ironic smile.

"I take it you meant something different by it?"

"With all due respect to Mrs. Prewett—" His eyes glimmered. "—The particular quality that I am referring to is something that, by definition, she could have no knowledge of."

Orion felt an odd fluttering in the pit of his stomach.

"Balderdash and nonsense," he muttered, staring down at his fingernails, determined not to let the other man see he was curious.

"You and Regulus share a determination to protect the ones you love—in some cases whether they want it or not." Orion's face flushed, and Dumbledore's understanding smile widened. "And I need hardly add—you both have a strong desire to draw as little attention to yourselves as possible while doing so. I believe you both prefer the loved ones in question know little, if anything, about what you're up to."

Mr. Black stared at Dumbledore, at another loss.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he bleated, feebly.

Albus Dumbledore gestured to the two objects on the table—the letter and the memory, exhibit A and B. He picked up the latter and held it in front of his face.

"You are not a fool—or naive. You know what giving me this means, Orion." Dumbledore stood up and crossed to the cabinet behind him. "If Lord Voldemort ever found out we had this conversation—"

"— _Don't_ ascribe noble intentions where there are none," Mr. Black interrupted, sharply. "This isn't an act of bravery—it's one of pure self-preservation. Your _cheap flattery_ is not only unmerited—it's unwanted."

Dumbledore had been fiddling with the lock on one of the cabinets behind his desk, he looked back over his shoulder.

"Pointing out that by giving me this you've risked your life is cheap flattery, in your eyes?"

Orion sneered.

"Well, what would _you_ call it?"

Professor Dumbledore blinked several times, and Mr. Black was convinced he was acting the part of stupid, which was an even more aggravating pose than his usual omniscience.

"A statement of fact," the old man said, gently.

Orion huffed and leaned back in his chair—a gesture oddly reminiscent of his elder son, and undoubtedly the product of the drink. He would never have normally showed such weakness in front of a member of his family, let alone an outsider that he already resented immensely.

" _Please_! I'm not risking _anything_. Risk would imply that I've made a choice." Orion folded his arms in front of his chest. "But I haven't—it's been made _for_ me. If my life _is_ forfeit, is has been from the moment my son stole that locket."

Orion watched him open the cabinet door and pull out the large stone basin with runes around the edge—the pensieve. Dumbledore's was wider than his own—the Black family pensieve was carved ebony, and had been passed down to him many years ago by his father—a man not known for his sense of self-reflection. Arcturus had had no use for it.

Dumbledore lifted his own up—with an ease that suggested far more physical strength than a man of his age had any right to possess. Next to him, Mr. Black—slumped down in his chair, tired to his core—felt very old indeed.

"We both know that isn't true, Orion."

He set the pensieve down next to the vial and looked into Mr. Black's eyes. He was no longer smiling.

"If Regulus had thought there was the _slightest_ possibility he was leaving you and your wife without the protection your blood status affords, if he thought he was leaving you in _danger_ —"

He uncorked the vial and with a swish of his wand, deposited its contents in the stone basin.

"—he would never have ordered the elf to take him to that cave."

The light from the pensieve cast silvery, flickering shadows on the ceiling.

"And yet—he did go, and here _I_ am." Orion lifted up his hand and gestured vaguely to the silver instruments on the table, the portraits of former headmasters and mistresses on the wall—and at Dumbledore himself. "Sitting here in this office, having this absurd conversation with a man I _detest._ Can you explain it to me?"

The moment it left his lips Orion realized that question was not rhetorical.

"There was a hitch in Regulus's plan."

Professor Dumbledore picked up the letter and dropped his gaze to the neatly written script, a curious look of satisfaction on his face.

"What hitch?"

"Quite simply: he lived." Orion looked up from the letter into Dumbledore's face, his own very pale again. "And _by_ living, he has made the path forward for your family very difficult. Nobody is more aware of this fact than Regulus himself."

Smiling, Dumbledore folded the letter back up and handed it back to Orion. The younger man took it, reluctantly. Only a few sheets of parchment—but it felt heavy in his hand.

"What are you saying?" he asked, quietly.

"I believe he has continued to act in secrecy for this reason. It's impressive—particularly when one considers who his mother and brother are. I'm sure it has not been easy for him to keep what he's doing from Sirius, who I suspect is pushing him rather hard."

Orion opened his mouth to protest—and then he thought of dinner the other night, and how Regulus had refused to answer his elder brother's probing onslaught of questions—he had seemed _so_ terrified.

The old Muggle-loving fool was right—he wasn't telling Sirius anything, either.

"He's good at making himself invisible," Orion admitted, reluctantly. "… _Too_ good, perhaps."

He could feel the piercing electric blue stare on him, even though he wasn't looking him in the eye.

"A talent he seems to have inherited."

Orion sighed and stared up at the portrait of Phineas Nigellus. The look on the clever old wizard's face reminded him uncannily of his father. He ran a hand through his hair distractedly and sighed.

"What a pair of sons."

"They _are_ both rather extraordinary."

He turned 'round on the older man—Dumbledore looked amused.

"Regulus is supposed to be the _easy_ one," Mr. Black grumbled, staring into the fireplace. Dumbledore chuckled, quietly. "Sirius always used to be the one to get _him_ into trouble. If you'd have told me a week ago that the opposite would be true—" He cut himself with a shake of his head. "—Well, I'd have said you'd had too much of _this_."

He lifted his glass to Dumbledore in an ironic salute, then lapsed into moody silence again.

"It's all my own fault," he said, after a moment. "I was too damn soft. I should have taken my father's advice and—beaten them."

Professor Dumbledore blinked slowly and pretended not to hear the half-heartedness in Mr. Black's voice.

"Would that have worked?" Dumbledore asked, mildly. "Would you say that terrorizing his children was effective for your father?"

He was so exhausted that Orion had not thought his anger could be roused again—but the old man had said the magic words.

"Don't you _dare_ presume to understand my family," Mr. Black said, eyes flashing with malice. "As if you're in any position to lecture me on the subject of fathers, when they clapped yours up in Azkaban when you were no more than a schoolboy."

Dumbledore said nothing to this, but there was a fluttering behind his eyes that showed, to Mr. Black, at least, that at last he'd gotten in a hit. He pressed his advantage, continuing, with a sneer.

"What was it they put him away for?" Orion leaned back in the chair, pretending to think. "That's right—defending your Squib sister from some wretched Muggles. My grandfather always _did_ used to say old Percival was the only Dumbledore who had a backbone."

Dumbledore said nothing—his mouth was pressed in a thin line. Orion relished this—it was very satisfying to think he had ruffled that maddeningly calm old meddler.

"Have I offended you?" he asked, scornfully.

"Not at all," Dumbledore forced a smile. "Despite your best efforts. I am no more offended by the truth—than _you_ are, I'm sure."

He tilted his head, returning the look of satisfaction. The Black patriarch's face flushed—thwarted again! He let out another long sigh.

"I am not your enemy, Orion."

"Well, you're not my _friend_ ," Mr. Black snapped, peevishly. He glared into those twinkling blue eyes with firm dislike and narrowed his own. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing—well, it won't work. I'm not my son, I don't hold you in awe. I've played the game long enough to know when I'm being _worked_ on."

"You came here of your own volition," Dumbledore pointed out, voice soft. "I did not invite, or ask you for this information. You may feel that I—or more likely, your sons—have forced you into this position, but the fact remains, Orion—the choice to give it _was_ yours." He paused. "The fact that you remain here after doing so leads me to believe that it was, in the end, not your primary reason for coming."

"And I suppose you have a theory about that."

"Certainly." He steepled his fingers. "I think you came with the intention making me swear never to send Sirius into such danger again." The man across the desk clenched his jaw, Dumbledore gestured to the letter still clutched in Orion's wand hand. "Another similarity between you and Regulus. Unfortunately, I am no more capable of making you such a promise as I was your younger son."

The two men studied each for a long time in silence. Mr. Black felt as helpless as he would in the face of a glacier without his wand.

"That is your final word?"

"It is." His smile was bland. "I couldn't stop Sirius from putting his life in danger even if I wanted to—and you know it. He would keep fighting this war if he were the last wizard alive left to do so."

"He has no sense of self-preservation at all. It's as if—he enjoys risking his neck!" Mr. Black said, quietly. "He gets a thrill from the danger. I guess it shouldn't surprise me—he's always been like that, he's been getting himself into scrapes since he could walk—he's fearless. I don't understand and I can't—I don't know how to—" His nostrils flared at the memory. "—Do you know what he did this morning? I told him they knew he was coming, and that ingrate actually had the temerity to accuse me of preventing him from walking in that room out of _spite_. "

The old man nodded, sympathetically.

"A very inelegant accusation," he agreed, lightly. "Is—erm, that why you didn't give him the memory this morning?"

He was so angry at the memory that the personal nature of this question didn't occur to him.

"Of _course_ that's the reason—! I wasn't about to _indulge_ that wretch, and give him what he wanted. It's tantamount to letting him get away with it, and if he thinks I'm going to let him do such things in future—"

"—And I'm sure it was very hurtful, to have your own son accuse you of malice, when you were only acting as any father would—and trying to protect him," Dumbledore finished for him.

Orion's face froze mid-rant.

He felt a flash of anger—how dare this man presume to understand his feelings—and opened his mouth to protest this gross presumption, when he saw the expression on the old man's face, and knew that protesting what his old Transfiguration teacher must know—what must've been obvious to anyone with eyes in their head—would only make him feel more feeble.

He sat up in the chair, attempting to recover his dignity—if there was anything left of it.

"…This is the most singular conversation I think I've ever had," Orion remarked, dryly. "I would have never pegged _you_ for a confidante."

"War makes strange bedfellows," Dumbledore replied, cheerfully.

The shadow of a smile crossed over Mr. Black's face. It certainly did. And without the clever wizard old wizard even saying it, he knew what he was thinking—the thought between them, the trump card.

Who _else_ did Orion have?

"Would you permit me?" He made a sweeping gesture to the pensieve, where Orion's silvery memory swirled about.

"I gave it to you, didn't I?" Mr. Black snapped back, peevishly. "We've come this far."

Albus Dumbledore rested one lined hand on the edge of the basin—then hesitated.

"Will you still be here when I return?"

The words he had spoken to Sirius that morning echoed in his head. He looked up at Phineas Nigellus, still watching the proceedings—sly face observing him with a look he was unused to from that quarter—understanding.

Expression hardened, he looked back at Dumbledore.

"I don't start things I'm not prepared to finish," Orion said, quietly.

Dumbledore gave him a final, fleeting smile and plunged his head into the basin.

Orion stared dully around the now empty office, his head pounding. There was an odd throbbing in his neck that might've been the blood pumping hard through his veins—it was difficult for him to tell. He was not accustomed to the feeling he imagined associated with one's blood being "up."

He was not accustomed to much of _anything_ that had happened in the last week.

He hardly knew who he was. A disquieting sensation niggled at the back of his mind—that he had not known who he was for sometime, in fact, and that he was only now realizing how little there _was_ to know.

His head was fuzzy from the drink, and as he was already of a naturally melancholic disposition, predisposed to black moods, he was especially eager for some distraction now. Orion wanted to be free from the constricting hold these dark thoughts held on him—if only for a moment. Mr. Black looked to the window—the snow was falling even harder outside. The room seemed so much bigger without Dumbledore's presence—or perhaps it was that the old man was so much larger than life that he filled whatever room he was in.

He was not entirely without company, though.

"What a comfort it is," he addressed the portrait on the wall—the only one of the Headmasters and Headmistresses who was not asleep (or pretending to be)—with a faint sneer. "To know that the Master of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place still enjoys the privilege of _private conversation_ in his own home."

"Would you refer to what you were engaged in as 'private' conversation?" Phineas Nigellus shot back, cooly. "You and your offspring were bellowing so loudly you awakened the portrait of my deaf great-niece three floors above."

Orion's face colored slightly.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with him," he sighed, looking up at his ancestor, chagrined.

Headmaster Black leaned forward in the frame and eyed his descendent slyly.

" _I_ would follow my grandson's advice over Dumbledore's, myself, if I were you," he drawled, casually.

Orion laughed, shakily.

"I have a feeling beating Sirius would only stir his defiance." he said, in a tired voice. "He was practically egging me on last night—"

"—Perhaps you should have called his bluff," Phineas interrupted, staring idly at his oil fingernails. "Maybe _then_ you'd gain the respect you obviously crave from that cub."

Mr. Black threw his distinguished ancestor a rather nasty look.

"Did beating your Muggle-loving blood-traitor son gain you _his_ respect?"

The moments when Phineas Nigellus—even the facsimile of him—could be rendered speechless were rare indeed. Orion savored it.

"The difference is," he finally said, silkily. "That by then I didn't _want_ it anymore."

Well, then—Orion shrugged—he was just not as strong as his fathers, was he? But he already knew that. There was something oddly comforting in having it pointed out, even if it was only by a remarkably perspicacious piece of art.

He turned towards the door. It was open—Dumbledore would not have locked it, as he had done to his son. He could still leave—Arcturus was not going to appear out of nowhere to prevent him, as he had last night.

His eyes fell on the magnificent phoenix, hitherto sleeping quietly in the corner, now awake. The scarlet animal was staring at him, eyes intelligent—reading his thoughts just as well as its master. His brow furrowed. Between this dratted bird and Phineas Nigellus, he wasn't really alone, was he?

He squeezed his eyes shut. The initial hot anger that had come at the heels with his great row with Sirius had burned out, leaving him tired, defeated and unspeakably weary. That audience had occupied him for the full three hours since it had ended so abruptly, and no amount of liquor, cheap or otherwise, could blot out the gamut of unpleasant emotions that his eldest son had stirred in his breast.

There was a pain he was carrying, and he knew full-well it was for that reason he had come here, primarily, not to give Dumbledore that damned memory—which was why he was not racing to the door now, as the wily old man surely must've realized (damn him!). He wanted satisfaction—no, Orion wanted _assurance,_ and he knew there was no else who could give it him.

He wouldn't get it for nothing.

No, he wouldn't leave. He would wait, and see the thing through properly—above all, he would do his duty. Orion turned his eyes back to the pensieve. His memory glittered innocently in the basin. He watched it cast shadows on the wall, and felt a strange sense of calm finality creep over him—a surety he had not known for many years.

It sobered him.

There was no turning back now.

* * *

"Well, well—" A sarcastic voice announced through the gap in the packages, boxes and bags that concealed its source. "—The gang's all here."

Four sets of eyes swiveled in the direction of the walking stack of boxes that had unceremoniously flung the door open a moment before.

Sirius kicked the flat's door shut behind him with his heel so hard the cracked mirror on the wall rattled in its frame—and every person in the room (for they all knew him exceedingly well) had an instant handle on his mood. Lily sprang to her feet, abandoning her knitting needles and the knobby ball of wool on the carpet.

"Oh, Padfoot—let me—"

Remus, who had been sitting cross-legged next to her, dutifully attempting to "help" Mrs. Potter with the baby cap, also rose, and before their disgruntled friend could protest, the two of them began removing bags and parcels from his arms placing them on the cluttered coffee table.

Sirius mumbled a half-hearted entreaty at them not to bother, but Lily and Remus ignored him, bustling about his presence and yanking things out of his stuffed-to-the-brim arms. This left him free to stare at the other two occupants of his flat's living room—James, sitting on his armchair, and Regulus curled up in his usual spot at the end of the sofa. Neither of them had made a move to get up or greet him—and in fact were both eying him with a watchful curiosity he found rather irritating.

"Alright, Prongs?" Sirius asked, voice a touch cool.

He ignored his brother's presence altogether, focusing on his best friend instead. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Regulus's forehead flush scarlet before he buried his head in the Black family inheritance law book. James shrugged.

"Alright." Absently, he rubbed the back of his head. "You?"

Sirius frowned. He was still put-out that James had not been back in the flat when he had returned last night. To see him here, the next day, looking not only fit as a fiddle—but also, if anything, annoyed with _him_ for Merlin knew what reason—well, it was the cherry topper to an already crap day.

 _It's not like I've done anything to piss_ him _off,_ Sirius thought, crossly—unable to shake off the feeling that there was some accusation behind the speccy git's eyes.

"Never been better," he replied, airily. James's expression still looked frigid. Remus, recognizing the tones of voice being used and smelling trouble, turned around from the table of parcels and looked between them. He could instantly tell that his two best friends were in a rare and unfortunate situation—each was annoyed with the other, and not for the same reasons—or even, apparently, reasons both were aware of.

This could get ugly fast.

Lily, for her part, was too busy spreading out what looked like the entire content of a shop window out on the table to notice the thick tension in the air between her husband and his best friend.

"Sirius—" Her almond-shaped green eyes and gone wide with bemusement. "What… _is_ all this?"

"Christmas shopping," Sirius replied, brusquely, and he grabbed one of the smaller bags off the table and marched over to his little brother.

Regulus had decided to return the favor of the cool—and, from his perspective, totally unmerited—reception, and was using the book to block Sirius and everyone else from sight. His elder brother, not used to being ignored by his younger sibling (or, indeed, anyone) grabbed the book out of Regulus's hands and tossed it on the floor.

"Here—" He lifted up the bag and unceremoniously dumped its contents into a protesting Reg's lap. " _Don't_ say I've never done something for you."

Regulus stared down at the bottle of perfume and the fine eagle-feather quill that had bounced out of his lap and onto the sofa in utter bewilderment. He looked up at his brother, pale face incredulous.

"These are—"

"—You gave me your list for a reason, didn't you?" Sirius interrupted, impatiently. "'Course, I draw the line at _wrapping_ them for you."

Before Reg could get out a stuttering reply, his brother had turned away from him and crossed back over to the table where the rest of the shopping lay. He began to carelessly root through the bags, pulling out packages and boxes and tossing them onto the floor and table, looking for something. He had evidently enlarged the interior of his satchel, for by the time he had found the roll of paper and tape he was looking for, it no longer looked as though an entire storefront was lying there—it looked like a shop-full of presents.

Everyone was full-on gaping now, for Sirius offered no explanation for it. He chucked the roll of paper and tape at his brother, then began to—even more incomprehensibly—dutifully gather up the crinkled receipts from the bottom of each bag, stack them on the table, smooth them out with his wand, stare at the bottom lines and mutter sums aloud to himself.

The peak of strange Sirius Black behavior was reached when he reached into his cloak and pulled out an enormous sack of gold and tossed it, unceremoniously, on the coffee table, the centerpiece of this holiday bazaar.

"Merlin, Sirius—how much is that?" Remus asked him, in a voice of frank disbelief. It was more gold than he had possibly ever seen in one place outside of a bank vault.

"A little less than a two-hundred galleons," Sirius replied, off-handedly, glancing up from the receipt from Dervish and Bangs. "I'd have to do the math to give you an exact figure."

Sirius was determined to ignore the looks of curiosity—his churlish expression seemed to be begging one of them to dare ask—and when he looked up his eyes fell on the basket of cold meats and fruit.

He narrowed his eyes and looked up at Lily.

"Was, eh—She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named over earlier?" Sirius asked, airily. His brother glared daggers at him.

"Don't call her that!"

His brother fell back on the other end of the sofa and shoved Regulus's legs aside, letting out a dismissive snort. Lily frowned.

"I assume you're referring to _your_ mother, and yes—" Lily's eyes flicked to Regulus, then back to the elder Black brother. "—She came by late this morning. She was looking for you."

He let out a dramatic grown of despair. Regulus kicked him.

"Oh, joy," Sirius said, moodily, elbowing his little brother's heel. "What was her, erm, mood like?"

"Erm—" She glanced back at Regulus, now staring determinedly out the window. "Well—she seemed…odd."

He rolled his eyes sky-high.

"That tells me nothing, Lily. She's _always_ odd." Sirius tilted his head sideways at his friend fiddling her fingers. "I'm talking about out of the ordinary strangeness. Was she worked up? Did she seem…agitated at all?"

"No more than usual." Sirius's head sank back into the sofa and he sighed, his relief obvious. Lily's brow furrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," he said, evasively. He met James's eyes for a second—his best friend had stood up from the armchair and had wandered over to the coffee table, and he was now idly studying the packages. "I'm surprised you're still here, Lils. I'd figured you'd have gone home ages ago."

 _To take care of your husband who I thought was on death's door, from how early he skivved off last night,_ Sirius added, moodily, in his head, watching Prongs flip through his boxes. What was James's problem, anyway? He thought they'd left things well last night—and though it wasn't as if he had any intention of explaining what a piss-up the previous evening had been, it would've been nice to get the impression James cared.

Why had he bothered to come back to the flat if he was only going to ignore him?

"Listen, Sirius—about your mum." She glanced nervously back at her husband, but James seemed oddly detached from the conversation. "When she was around, I sort of…brought up Christmas Eve, and if there was any way you could come to our place."

Sirius slowly raised his head and stared at Mrs. Potter as one would a person who had lost their mind entirely.

"I kind of, maybe—" She scrunched up her face and screwed up her courage. "Suggested that she or your father could swing by here for an hour or two, so that you could visit us."

Sirius goggled at her.

"Merlin, Lily—you didn't." Slowly, she nodded. "Do you have a _death wish_?"

It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes. She bent down to pick up her needles and yarn, and blew a stray strand of her dark red hair out of her eyes.

"Please. You are always so dramatic about her, honestly. It was—" She gave a strained smile. "—Admittedly, not fantastic, but I think she'll come around, if _you_ speak to her—"

The brothers Black let out identical disbelieving laughs. The elder reached his hand into the basket and picked out a pear and began to throw it up and down in the air, restively.

"How many times do I have to explain this to you?" Sirius asked her, exasperated. " _Relenting_ is not something that woman knows how to do, Lils. You'd have been better served smuggling me out of this flat in an _orange crate_ than asking her to change her plans."

Remus had been hovering on the edge of this circle of conversation, and in the absence of James weighing in—he was being uncharacteristically quiet—decided to interject.

"You could at least try, Sirius." Sirius turned on him—an _Et tu, Moony?_ look if ever there was one. "There's no harm in that."

"Actually, Moony—there is." He chucked the uneaten pear across the room. "If I so much as _breathe_ a word suggesting I want to go to your party, Lily, that woman will make it a point to swing by this flat on Christmas Eve just to make sure I _don't_. It's what she does—finds out what you want and tries to take it away."

"I don't think you're being very fair to your mother," Lily scolded him.

"I'm being realistic—which in this case is the same thing. Regulus knows of what I speak, at least." Sirius turned towards his brother for support—on this point, at least. "I'm right, aren't I, Reg, about her digging in her heels?"

Regulus pursed his lips—but he didn't contradict him.

James, meanwhile, had gotten it into his head to start rooting around Sirius's hoard, and at the bottom of a rather tatty gray shopping bag had stuck gold. He pulled a heavy, evil-looking silver knife with a skull shaped handle out and waved it around in the air.

"What the _hell_ kind of Christmas gift is this, Padfoot?"

Sirius jumped to his feet, face burning red.

"Not one for you, obviously." He yanked the object out of James's hand. "If you must know, it's got very unique properties, freshly arrived from a dealer in the Far East—but I had to take it as-is." He let out a mirthful laugh. "Turns out Borgin and Burkes doesn't _do_ gift-wrapping."

Sirius flopped back down on the sofa next to Regulus, holding the ghoulish dagger in a very cavalier manner. The sharp end dangled dangerously from his wrist, the rubies embedded in each of the skull's eyes making it look alive. He poked his brother with the handle end.

Regulus, who was painstakingly wrapping the small perfume box, either didn't notice—or pretended not to. Sirius craned his neck over his shoulder to get a better look—he lot out a low whistle.

"Hey—you're pretty good at that, Reg," Regulus looked up from the neat crease he had made with his wand, expression impassive—only to find a giant knife pointed in his face. "Want to do me a favor and wrap this, while you're at it?"

The younger boy's eyes flitted to the ostentatious knife then back up at his face. The look he gave Sirius was decidedly shrewd.

"Who is it for?"

Sirius's mouthed thinned.

"Never you mind," he answered, evasively, hand still stuck out. Regulus gave it a single snide look, then rose from the sofa, his neatly wrapped small presents under each arm.

"I'll pass, thanks," he told Sirius, primly. His elder brother tossed the knife back on the table, scowling at Regulus's back.

Regulus marched past his brother's friends with the same aloof and studied unconcern he would have used on them if he had passed them in the halls of Hogwarts. When he turned around and spoke, with utmost dignity, it was as if the other three were not even in the room.

"Kreacher has lunch in the other room for us," Regulus informed him, tersely. "Are you coming now, or should I tell him you'll eat later?"

Sirius slouched further back on the sofa. If he had still had the knife in his hand, he would have looked, quite literally, murderous.

"Tell him I've already eaten, and I don't want anything," he said, with the barest trace of petulance in his voice. He was painfully aware of Remus, Lily and James all staring at him.

"Fine," Regulus sniffed. "Suit yourself. You _should_ know that Mother already ordered him to make sure you have a proper lunch, so he's just going to follow you around until you eat the stupid sandwich. It's just as well you get it over with."

 _"_ _You_ —!"

"—And I don't see why you even bothered having all those wrapped," he interrupted, this time with a tinge of smug superiority. "If he's having you save the receipts, he's just going to make you unwrap them all again to check what you bought. You're only making more work for yourself."

His brother's face drained of color, and he sat up straight—looking livid.

The three other people in the room all turned to Regulus in unison.

"What are you on about?" James asked, edge in his voice. " _Who_ is going to make you unwrap all these?"

He had put on a very haughty, superior look—but at _that_ question, coming from _that_ quarter, Regulus turned rather vicious.

"Our _father_ —who else?" Regulus gave a pointed look at James, then he pointed at the large bag of galleons. "That's his gold—and those are all _his_ gifts. I guess that's the pressing appointment you had this morning—doing his shopping."

Sirius rose from the moldy sofa slowly, looking read to spring on Regulus like a dangerous animal. His brother's challenging look faltered for just a moment. Remus and the Potters all stared.

"Well, aren't _you_ a regular Sherlock Holmes?"

Sirius jumped off the couch and sauntered around the table. He seemed casual—a little _too_ casual, and the way he was holding his wand suggested boded ill. Remus and Lily exchanged a look of frank concern, but James kept his eyes trained on his best friend.

"Who is _that_?" Regulus asked, in a voice that spoke to how beneath him he thought the question.

"He's another nosy know-it-all," Sirius shot back, snidely. "Go eat lunch, then, and leave us in peace." He gesticulated around the borders of the cluttered living room. "I officially proclaim _this_ a Slytherin-free zone."

Regulus's face colored, and he once again looked as young as his eighteen years.

"I'd like to see you tell Mother that," he said, haughtily.

Unlike his elder brother, Regulus was rarely given to slamming doors—so he shut the one to the kitchen behind him with a well-bred snap.

Sirius glared at the wooden door, his hands clenched ineffectually at his side. The awkward silence filled the air in the living room like the monotonous hum of a refrigerator.

"He _has_ gotten full of himself in the last three years," Sirius muttered to his friends, apologetically—as if they were the ones who had been left embarrassed by Regulus's pointed commentary. "Real cheeky. He's forgotten his place, the prat."

Lily came up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder—clearly fighting a smile.

"Go easy on him," she said, gently squeezing his arm. "Regulus was very worried about you, even if he doesn't let it show. He was fretting all morning."

This hardly softened Regulus's brother.

"Stop talking about him like he's just some boy," Sirius said, peevishly. "He was a Death Eater until about a week ago, Lily, in case you've forgotten." He sneered in the door. "If you ask me, he still has many residual traits of the enemy."

Lily raised an eyebrow. It was difficult to take him seriously, considering the substance of the argument. She very much doubted that You-Know-Who gave a fig about the great Sirius Black luncheon debate, somehow.

But then she remembered how miserable he had seemed last night and decided to soften what she wanted to say to him—namely that he was acting like a child.

"And of a younger brother," Lily pointed out, archly. He threw her a disgruntled look and crossed his arms. "That's what he is first—your brother. You don't fool me, you know. You don't really think of him that way. He's your family—not the enemy."

A cynical smile flashed across Sirius's face.

"When it comes to mine, there's hardly a distinction," he muttered, crossing back to the now vacated sofa and flopping down. Stretched out, he took up the entire length of it—his feet dangled over the end. Sirius tucked his hands behind is head. "First my mother, now Reg—your wife will take _anyone_ as a charity case, James."

James was still lost in in thought, but the sarcastic remark snapped him out of his stupor, and he turned to look at Sirius.

"Since when do you do your dad's Christmas shopping for him?"

Sirius froze, hand reaching out to the largest of the packages. He lowered it to his side and looked round, suddenly wary—and irritated. He tossed his head, his resemblance to a dog trying to shake off a shoofly uncanny. Lily and Remus seemed to have gotten the picture that he wanted _that_ subject to go unexplored the second Reggie had let it slip.

It was very typical of obtuse Prongs not to get it.

"Oh, you know—since…this week," he said, with an unconcerned shrug. James's face remained stony, and Sirius began to fidget under his scrutiny, though not even he could have pinpointed exactly what it was that bothered him so much about that look.

He scrunched up his face, his defensiveness roused.

"You know how it is! Dumbledore was the one who wanted me to play nice with them—" Sirius scowled at James. "And I thought _you_ were all gung-ho about that."

James raised an eyebrow.

"So, this was your idea?" he asked, with a perfectly modulated to irritate amount of skepticism. He jabbed his head in the direction of the pile of bounty on the table, which seemed more ridiculous by the second. "You _volunteered_ to buy all that?"

"Well—no—of course I didn't _volunteer_ for it!" he replied, indignantly. Sirius pointed with his wand at the pile on the table, with so much annoyance that the force of it knocked the carriage clock he'd bought his great-aunt to the floor. "Merlin, Prongs, don't you think I have better things to do with my time than buy out half the posh-o stores in Diagon Alley?"

He had said the magic words.

"So your father is _making_ you do his shopping—is that it?"

For a moment Sirius just stared at him, utterly blindsided. He sat up, painfully aware everyone in the room was watching him. He had unwittingly stumbled right into the trap James set for him. Normally he was very good at avoiding verbal blunders that would leave him on the back-foot—a lifetime in his family had taught him something, and this week aside, he was usually adept at avoiding springing them.

But he never expected one to be set by James.

"What the _hell_ kind of question is _that_?" Sirius demanded, color rising in his face.

His best friend did not look abashed, and he kept his eyes fixed on Sirius—as if he were trying to gauge a reaction. Sirius was filled with a kind of creeping dread in the pit of his stomach. At James's right, Remus looked similarly alarmed, and on instinct he stepped forward—but the second he caught sight of the expression on his two best friends' faces, he knew it was no use.

"One with a yes or no answer," James answered him, evenly.

He froze—and then Sirius's face turned an unpleasant shade of burnt raspberry jam, and the Black temper he had famously inherited from Walburga boiled up.

"I'm sorry—I thought this was _my_ house, and you lot were my _guests_." Sirius looked around the flat, raising his hands and gesturing sarcastically to his surroundings. "I didn't realize I was coming back to a _fucking_ interrogation." He looked around at the other two—Lily actually flinched at his expression. "Are you two in on this as well? Did you put him up to it?"

Mrs. Potter—who of course knew nothing of any of the substance of James's purpose, and could barely glean what her husband was implying, let alone cop to being a _part of it—_ opened and closed her mouth a few times. Sirius's eyes quickly darted to Remus (he had composed his face in a manner far more closed off and guarded than Lily—but then, he had a talent for that) who took another step in his direction. His hands were held in front of him in a placatory manner.

"No one is interrogating you, Sirius," Moony said, quietly. "James is just—concerned."

"I notice you didn't answer the question."

Sirius turned his head in his best friend's direction so sharply it could have cut glass. James was still maddeningly calm, not defensive at all—and Sirius could see behind the spectacles from the look in his hazel eyes that he was not going to let it go.

And Sirius had no intention of giving him what he wanted.

"Lily," he addressed Mrs. Potter, chewing her bottom lip nervously. "I think you ought to leave now—and take _him_ with you."

He jabbed a thumb derisively in James's direction, then fell back down on the sofa in a forcedly casual manner, like he was planning on taking a nap.

"Sirius—"

"And you _may,"_ He interrupted, speaking loudly in the direction of the ceiling. "Want to advise your husband that in future he should try to avoid _sticking his nose in_ where it isn't wanted."

Lily's gasp was the only sound that cut through the painful moment of silence following this suggestion, couched in the surliest language and tone. Sirius stared hard at the crack in the paint above him, fighting the urge to look at James's face—he wished rather than hoped for a sense of satisfaction at shutting James up.

Remus, who was watching James, was a little alarmed by what he saw in his friend's face. He was expecting a row—James and Sirius fought so rarely that when they did, they always burned red hot, but the restraint—and _shrewdness_ with which Prongs was studying the young man on the couch was not like him it all. He didn't know quite what to make of it.

One thing was for certain: this wasn't over.

After a long time watching Sirius exercise all his self-control to ignore the rest of them, James turned his head in the direction of Remus.

"Thanks for taking the time to talk to me this afternoon, Moony," he said, shaking his hand affectionally—though his expression remained serious and thoughtful. "I think your instincts were right about—well, more than one thing."

A soft and unmistakably dog-like growling noise came from the direction of the sofa. James and Remus's mouths both twitched upwards at the sound, though Remus could not resist throwing a wry look at his bespectacled friend— _you couldn't resist dragging_ me _into this, could you?_

James smiled back, though it was not his usual full-throated grin. He turned around to look at his wife, and when he reached out to grab her hand he heard James murmur to Lily, 'Later' in a low voice.

"We're heading out now, Padfoot." James was perfectly polite—even friendly, but this tone of voice was not the one that he normally used when speaking to Sirius, and everyone in the room knew it. "I'll, erm…I'll see you later."

Sirius made a stiff "hm" sound by way of ascent, but he did not look at James. Lily nudged her husband.

"If you want to talk," he said, more gently. "You know our house is yours. You can come over any time you like."

Sirius curled his feet up and turned his back to the Potters.

"I'm very busy right now, but I'll see if I can pencil you in sometime before the new year."

"Right." He didn't give the other man the petty pleasure of rising to the bait. James threw Remus a pointed look and sighed. "Well, we're off."

Lily echoed the muted goodbye—clearly more interested in getting out of the flat so she could interrogate her husband on the subject of 'what the hell all that was about'—and the two of them left the flat through the front door, leaving Remus alone with the high-strung master of the house. _He_ was currently glaring daggers at a water stain his land-lady had told Sirius, when he first looked at it, 'gave the place character'.

The memory of Sirius telling that story—his light-hearted, barking laugh as he had relayed all the deficiencies Mrs. Jenkins had tried to play up as adding the 'bohemian mystique' of the place, and how it had been the old woman's frank desperation to rent that dump that had convinced him to take it—came back to Remus, and he smiled, sadly. They had still been in school then, and though they were only a year and a half gone from those days, right now it felt a lifetime.

The mild-mannered werewolf hovered awkwardly in between the sofa and the kitchen door. Sirius's body was rigid, he was still staring stonily at the ceiling, and Remus felt very like a camper in the woods who has encountered a wild animal and is wary of sudden movements or sounds because he was unsure if the animal would run at him or attack. He cleared his throat.

"Don't even start."

Sirius lifted his head and glared at him. Remus, long used to the tempers and moody spells of Sirius Black, didn't let it phase him—at least the silence was broken. He settled down into the arm chair recently vacated by their friend.

"I didn't say anything," he replied, lightly. Sirius snorted.

"I can practically _hear_ you thinking from across the room, Moony." Sirius rolled over on his side toward the kitchen door. He glared at it for a long time—he seemed to be embroiled in some tumultuous inner monologue, wherein he was working himself into a state, because by the time he vaulted off the sofa and barreled across the room he barely seemed aware Remus was still there.

"Padfoot, where are you—"

But he was not listening, he was single-minded in his purpose, and Remus had to scramble out of the armchair as hastily as he had sat down to follow his friend through the kitchen door and not have it slammed in his face.

Sirius skidded to a halt in the middle of the linoleum floored room. His brother was seated at the kitchen table, which had been laid out with a table cloth and handsome lunch spread of sandwiches, fruit, cheeses and hot potatoes with some kind of _gruyere_ sauce on the side which Remus thought smelled like heaven itself.

Padfoot, for his part, had no eyes for the food. He made a beeline for his stony-faced younger brother, half-way through doling himself out plate of salad.

"Alright _you_ , time to fess up!" Sirius raised one hand in a gesture of dramatic accusation. "What the _hell_ did you tell—"

At the sight of Kreacher the house-elf perched on a stool by the counter where he was dribbling icing over a large tea-cake, this tirade died in his throat. Regulus patted his mouth with a linen serviette and looked up at his brother. He and the servant wore identical pompous expressions, but Regulus's was a little challenging.

Sirius looked back and forth between them, as if he could not decide which one he should yell at first.

"Master Sirius should eat his lunch before it gets cold," Kreacher said to him. His eyes were narrowed in a look of deep and profound suspicion. "Kreacher has set out a place for him in the filthy hovel Master calls his home."

Remus blanched. Sirius had told him his mother's servant had taken to making jabs about the flat—according to him, parroted from Mrs. Black's private comments to his father—but he had not actually heard him say one. Sirius seemed unfazed by it, though he did give the creature a look of profound contempt.

"I'm not hungry, Kreacher," Sirius said coldly, over the sound of his stomach growling. "And I don't want any of that."

"And then," the elf said, in a louder voice, ignoring the backtalk. "Master Sirius should go rest." Kreacher gave him a critical once-over. "He looks as if he has not slept, and Master knows how ill-tempered he gets when he is tired."

Sirius's face colored.

"I don't need a nosy house-elf to tell me to take a nap," the more difficult of Kreacher's two charges replied, crossly. He turned to the humans in the room, head held high. "I'll be in my room. If anyone comes looking for me, do me a favor and tell them I've jumped out the window."

And then, mustering what little dignity he felt he was still capable of summoning, Sirius marched down the hall and into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a slam.

Sirius dramatically flung himself onto the bed. It already been neatly made (by Kreacher, undoubtedly—the cot at the end of the bed where he had been sleeping was also made, and he had certainly not bothered.) He took a petulant pleasure in kicking his shoes off onto the floor and messing up the covers by pulling out the tightly tucked in ends of the blankets. He grabbed one of the six gigantic ornamental pillows Walburga insisted on decorating it with and hugged it to his chest, burying his face in the musky damask.

Sirius looked at the ticking clock on the mantle and groaned. Merlin, it was only three in the damn afternoon. This felt like the longest day of his life.

The door opened a crack, and even without rolling over to look at the intruder, the familiar light skittering told him who it was.

"I _told_ you I wasn't hungry," Sirius said, tonelessly.

The elf predictably ignored him, climbing onto the bed with his tray—on which lay a sandwich and an elegantly arrayed arugula and beet salad—and stubbornly holding it out to his young charge.

"Master Sirius must eat."

He gave the plate a single disdainful look.

"I don't want that. Take it away."

"Mistress said to make sure Master Sirius ate his good and wholesome food, not nasty mudblood swill," Kreacher said, firmly, practically shoving the plate into Sirius's face. It was all the young master could do to keep himself from flinging the heavy silver tray against the wall in a pet.

He sat up, propping himself against the headboard. It was a far better angle from which to ward off pushy servants who wouldn't leave you alone. He gripped his wand under the covers, quite prepared to blast the little toe-rag into the wall if he didn't let up.

Of course, the thing you had to remember about Kreacher was that he wasn't above fighting dirty himself. Sirius could not count the number of times when he was a boy the elf had used his own particular brand of magic to either keep the young heir from doing something or to keep him in some place—often it had been both.

He didn't fancy testing the limits of that magic on the _adult_ children of a house elf's master and mistress.

"Fish and chips," he said, in a lofty voice. "Are not _swill_. In fact, they are a sight better than whatever _that is._ " Kreacher's lip curled in a manner remarkably like his mistress, but refrained from arguing about the relative merits of the food that Sirius kept bringing back to the flat and trying to ply his much better behaved younger brother with.

He remained firmly planted on the bed. Sirius let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine. Leave the tray _there_ —" He leaned over to the bedside table and knocked a few knick-knacks off it to make room. "—And kindly shove off."

The elf shook his head, resolute in the face of his marching orders.

"Kreacher will not leave until he's seen Master Sirius eat his food with his own two eyes."

"Oh, for God's sake—I am not a child!" He wrapped one of the blankets around himself and nestled into the bed, looking extremely sulky as he did so. "Now go away!"

The elf remained stubbornly in place. Sirius felt his temper flair.

"I said, get the _hell_ out of—"

"It's alright, Kreacher," a voice from the door cut in, calmly. "I'll take care of this. You go wait in the kitchen."

At Regulus's calm order—which sounded more like a suggestion, the elf's reaction could not have been more different. He bowed his head deferentially ( _"Yes, Master Regulus!"_ ) and throwing one last backwards look of annoyance at Sirius, scampered out of the room—though the tray of lunch remained on the bed next to the slouching young wizard, cocooned in his coverings.

"At least _he_ has the right idea about you being the heir," Sirius pointed out, as his brother crossed the room and sat gently down on the edge of the bed. "Even if no one else does."

Regulus's mouth twitched. It was then his elder brother realized he had the silver, skull-handled knife clutched in his right hand.

"Come to put me out of my misery?" he asked, innocently.

Regulus held the ridiculous object blade up in front of him.

"Who exactly is supposed to be getting _this_ for Christmas?" he asked his brother, eyes narrowed in a knowing suspicion.

Exhausted though he was, Sirius cracked a wry smile.

"Don't you think our grandfather will appreciate such a thoughtful gift from his only son?" Regulus dropped it on the covers in shock.

"Are you _completely_ insane?" Regulus yelped. "There's no way Grandfather will think Father bought that for him!"

"But wouldn't you pay money to see the look on his face when he opens it?" Regulus was shaking his head in horror, to which Sirius could only roll his eyes. "Oh, _relax_ , Reg—have a sense of humor, for once." Sirius scooting over to let his brother have room on the bed. "It's grisly and expensive—Arcturus'll _love_ it."

Regulus climbed onto the bed, but the conspicuous food tray made it awkward. Sirius started to push it off the bed, but his brother stopped him by force.

"It's a _sandwich_ , Sirius," he pointed out, annoyed. His brother was eyeing it with utter distrust, almost as if he thought it was poisoned. "Just eat it."

"No. I refuse—on principle."

" _What_ principle?"

"The principle that—it's—watercress," Sirius mumbled, poking at the salad with his fork, moodily.

"So?"

He looked up from the plate, mildly indignant that his brother failed to grasp the import of this detail.

"So—she knows I _hate_ watercress. This is a power game, Regulus. She wants to prove she's the one calling the shots. It's all about control." He slouched down sullenly against the headboard. "Everything is with the two of them. Well, _I_ for one refuse to play."

His stomach chose that moment to growl again, loudly. Sirius crossed his arms and turned his back to the plate of food, stubbornly.

His younger brother sighed again. He was tempted to point out that calling Walburga's choice of sandwich 'a game' and refusing to eat it was, in fact, playing her game—but it didn't seem worth it at this juncture to point out these inconvenient facts. He picked up the tray and set it down on the bedside table where Sirius had cleared a space for it a minute before.

"You never came in last night."

Regulus was still bent over the tray, moving the quills and parchment on the table around fussily, so Sirius couldn't see his face.

"It was late and I—didn't want to wake you," Sirius lied. He knew it must've been very obvious—he wasn't looking at Regulus, for one thing—but the elder Black brother was so tired that he didn't much care.

"I was waiting up for you," Regulus replied, back still turned, his voice low—and buried in his irritation there was a touch of pain even his thick-skulled brother couldn't miss.

Sirius sat up. He pulled the pillow towards him again, hugging it to his chest in a defensive posture.

"Well, _I_ didn't know that! It was two in the morning!" He pulled his knees up as well. "And anyway, I wasn't _exactly_ in the mood to chat."

At last, Regulus turned around—his face was a blank, totally expressionless. To his elder brother, whose earliest memories were of a one-year-old Reggie's face screwed up, about to start bawling—it was quite unnerving to see him so without emotion. _Where_ , Sirius wondered, had his brother learned to do that? It was a question he intuitively knew he didn't really want the answer to.

It reminded him, unpleasantly enough, of their father.

But just as quickly the spell broke, and the anxious worry he was more accustomed to from Reg shined through.

"So…so I'm guessing it—" Regulus hesitated. "—Didn't go so well last night?"

Sirius let out a derisive giggle.

"Is that a lucky guess, or did Lily tell you?" he asked, rolling onto his back, voice heavy with sarcasm. Regulus shrugged.

"A—little of both," his brother replied, voice small.

Sirius's nostrils flared. They both stared at each other—neither knowing what to say. Regulus seemed to be at a loss, teetering between several ways of proceeding with this audience. After a few moments of waiting for the next inevitable and irritating question, Sirius lost his patience.

"What, did you just come in here to gloat?"

"Of course not!" Regulus exclaimed, his disbelief masking the hurt well. "I came to—I wanted to know what happened."

Sirius stuck his hands behind his head and stared determinedly up at the ceiling again.

"In short—you were right," Sirius told him, bluntly. "I got caught."

At this seemingly incomprehensible statement, the slighter boy stared at him.

"What d'you—but you're here, Sirius."

"I'm painfully aware of that fact, Regulus."

Reg furrowed his brow—now he was definitely acting like the younger brother Sirius remembered—slow on the uptake.

"But how could you have gotten caught if you—"

Sirius let out a groan and buried his face in the pillow.

"Look, I just—I got caught, but I managed to get away—without the information. That's what happened." He pulled his face away from the cushion and chanced a look at his brother. As he'd expected, his carefully curated version of the truth was not going over very well.

Reggie was looking rather shrewdly at him.

"There's something you're not telling me," Regulus said, in a low and suspicious voice. "Who _exactly_ caught you?"

Sirius rolled over on his side again, inwardly cringing. He was torn—there was a part of him that wanted very much to tell Regulus the truth, to unload his misery on the one person who could halfway understand the full horror (at least in theory) of getting caught on an espionage mission by Orion Black—but that feeling was at war with the fresh mortification he felt at how Orion had gotten him out of there (he could still feel the impression of that damn muzzle on his face) and his anger—wholly irrational—at Regulus himself for being so damn right about how misguided the entire venture had been in the first place.

"I would…rather not say." Regulus let out a huff, and Sirius's hackles rose, defensively. "Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

His little brother stood up from the bed and walked over to the closet, where some of his own freshly pressed robes were hanging next to Sirius's, and busied himself with picking out a set for dinner—the perfect excuse to not have to look at him anymore.

"You don't have to lie to me about last night—" Regulus murmured, into the wardrobe. "If you don't want to tell me what really happened, that's fine—don't make up some story about getting caught and managing to miraculously escape. It's not _exactly_ believable."

Sirius sat up, propping himself up on his forearms, face flushed with indignation. The little runt actually thought he had invented this? After the night he'd had, Reg was lucky he wasn't getting cursed on the spot.

"I didn't make it up—it's not like that. _Merlin_ , I've told you more than I've told my friends," he groused, bitterly. His eyes widened—Sirius's own remark had reminded him of something. Sirius leveled a hard stare at his brother's back. "Speaking of which—you were getting real matey with James last night, weren't you?"

Regulus's hand froze on the sleeve of his cloak.

"Why do you ask that?"

"How much did you tell him?" Sirius demanded, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "About me and Dad?"

"Nothing." Sirius let out a laugh of scorn, and his brother spun around on his heel. "I only said a little—I thought you told him everything, anyway."

"Not about _that_. Not about our family—God, Regulus—" Sirius threw his hands up in the air—he brandished the knife that was to be his grandfather's Christmas gift in his brother's direction. "You've no idea what we look like to normal people, do you?"

His brother's bottom lip trembled—they had retread this fight so many times, what more needed to be said?

"You aren't going to tell me anything else, are you?"

Sirius shrugged, coldly.

"Until you get better at keeping secrets from my mates, I don't think I should tell you anything more about secret missions for the Order of the Phoenix," he said, loftily. "You clearly can't be trusted to keep your mouth shut."

Regulus's face flushed an unsightly shade of pink.

"Fine!" He stomped to the door, looking furious. "Then I'll just go and—leave you alone, since that's _clearly_ what you want!"

"Before you do—" Sirius pointed to the drawstring bag he'd carelessly tossed on the ground. "Those are Phineas Nigellus's letters. Take them. We're supposed to start reading them tonight." He held up a hand over Reg's stifled protest. "It was your dumb hunch, you'll remember, so you can read that pile."

Even Regulus's enthusiasm for family history was dented by the sight of that two foot tall bundle of family records.

"He said we both had to do it," Regulus pointed out, voice just as cold. "He's going to ask us to give examples of things we've found out. If you don't do any of the work, Father's going to know, and we'll _both_ get in trouble."

"So we'll both get in trouble, then!"

"I'm only taking half of these," Regulus insisted, Black stubbornness out in full force. He wasn't going to take the rap for Sirius's bad mood and whatever it was he'd done to incur their father's wrath. It had not yet occurred to him there might be a connection between the two things. "You can start in on the rest."

He pulled half the books out of the drawstring satchel, and in an uncharacteristic display of temper threw the bag holding the rest onto the bed with a tad too much force to be considered 'helpful'. It landed a few inches short of Sirius's head, and certainly would have given him a black eye if his brother's aim had been truer.

"Watch it!" he hissed, like an angry cat. "What do you think you mean by it, flinging heirlooms at my—"

"—If you're going to go to sleep, I'll send Kreacher in to wake you before supper," Regulus said, unapologetically. " _If_ Mother doesn't wake you up first, coming through that fireplace. I suppose it's alright if I go back in the sitting room, or is it still a 'Slytherin-free zone'?"

"You can hole up in the loo, for all I care."

Regulus rolled his eyes sky-high.

"Whatever," he said, in a dismissive voice. "Don't expect me to cover for you again."

With a single, contemptuous look, Regulus swept out of the room—the stack of books as tall as his head filling up his arms and making him look the part of the bookish Slytherin he had been at Hogwarts.

Collapsing back on the bed, Sirius let out a hard laugh. Not cover for him? Please. Reg had been saying this was 'the last time' since they were five and six years old. His younger brother hated family rows far more than he wanted to see Sirius get punished for shirking his duties. He would lie through his teeth about where his brother had been the previous night.

Not that, in this case, it would do any good.

Just thirty seconds gone from Regulus fleeing the room, and he already felt an insurmountable wave of guilt, which was neck-and-neck with his shame for the most overpowering emotion churning in his chest.

He shouldn't have lost his temper with Regulus. There hadn't been any good reason for it, except that Regulus was inexorably tied with _them_ , and _they_ were the ones that made him this way.

That's why he'd had to get away from them in the first place, wasn't it? They had no one but themselves to blame. They brought it out in him, this petulant, miserable person he'd thought he'd shaken off for good.

It was _their_ fault he was acting like this.

If Sirius repeated it to himself enough times, while concentrating on the memory of Orion putting a lead on him, he could _almost_ believe it was true.

The sound of the door being gently opened drew him reluctantly from his gloomy thoughts.

"I thought you might like a pick-me-up." The mild voice matched the mild face of Remus Lupin. Sirius rolled sluggishly over onto his side so that he was facing Moony. His eyes flitted to the two cups of tea in his friend's hands.

"Are you my mum now, Moony?" Sirius asked, pulling the blanket tightly around his head, which gave him the appearance of wearing a babushka.

Remus shut the door gently behind him with his foot and smiled.

"Well, I don't _really_ fancy competing with her for the title." Sirius gave him a dour look—but he did grudgingly accept the cup of tea. He took a few gulps—it was fortifying, and with just the right amount of milk and sugar, so that when he set it down on the tray next to his untouched lunch, he almost felt human again.

"Thanks," Sirius said, grateful to be with the one person in his life he was pretty sure was not pissed at him right now. "I—needed that."

"Anytime." Remus glanced down at the food. His smile this time was rather wry. "You—you really weren't kidding about that elf and his—devotion to your mother."

Sirius pulled a face.

"Isn't it sickening?" He fluffed a pillow and stuck it behind his head. "He's fanatical about her—and doing what she asks. It's perverse." He picked at some stuffing coming out of one of the cushions. "He's like one of those widows in India who fall on their husband's funeral pyres."

Remus knew he shouldn't really laugh at the image—but it was funny, and it always cheered up Sirius to have his jokes laughed at.

"Are you saying he's in love with her?"

"Practically—and the thing of it is, she's not even _nice_ to him!" Sirius muttered, silkily. "I don't get it at all—why he cares so much. It doesn't make sense to care what people who don't treat you right think. It's utterly… _irrational_."

Remus made a small 'mm' sound in the back his throat, but didn't comment further. There was nothing he could say, and he had a sneaking suspicion Sirius was no longer talking about the elf.

They sat in as comfortable a silence as was possible, given the circumstances. Sirius might've currently hated the world, but in truth, he didn't _really_ want to be left alone—and as Remus was just about the only person he could stand, it made for a more pleasant afternoon tea than he could have hoped for.

"James isn't going to let this go, you know."

…Or it _would_ have been, if Moony hadn't felt the need to bring them crashing back to reality, as he always did.

"I'm _fully_ aware of James Potter's pathological inability to mind his own business, Remus," Sirius replied, playing absently with his tea bag. "Why do you think I'm in such a sunny mood, currently?

"He's only worried about you." Remus lowered his mug onto the table. "And he's not the only one."

"I'm touched," Sirius muttered, heavily sarcastic. "Where was all this concern a week ago?"

At this feeble provocation, Remus only smiled, knowingly.

"Are you alright, Padfoot—truly?"

"Yeah, Moony…I'm alright," he grumbled, sitting up. "Just an idiot."

His friend bit back a laugh.

"We're all very aware." He smiled over the edge of his teacup. "We like you anyway."

"Thanks." He stretched his arms—the movement caused his stomach to growl. Sirius glanced down at the plate of food. It was looking more appetizing by the minute. He forced himself to look away from it and at his friend. Remus was still studying him—no doubt he was going to report back to the Potters on his mood. "I don't know how long I can keep this up, Remus. I'm not sure I'm going to make it to the 1980s with my _sanity_ intact."

"Is there anything I can do?"

He opened his mouth to tell Remus not to worry—a phrase he'd repeated to him on a regular basis since 1971—when a thought occurred to him.

"You know what, Remus—there actually _is_." Sirius bolted up in bed. "Can you come back around, tonight—about 10:30?"

His shabby friend rubbed at one of his patched slows and furrowed his brow, confused.

"Sure I can—but why?"

"I have an appointment I have to keep, and I can't leave my brother alone in the flat."

Both of Remus's eyebrows flew up.

"An appointment at—eleven at night?" Remus frowned, then gave Sirius, innocently staring at the ceiling, a knowing look. "Is this business or pleasure?"

He flashed him a roguish grin.

"Oh, you know me, Moony—I like to have a bit of both." The line of Remus's mouth remained firmly thin and flat—Sirius fixed his face into a more sober expression, if only to appease his friend. "Let's call it— _damage control_. There's a loose end from last night…I need to tie up."

"A loose end, eh?" Remus repeated, slowly. "Tell me, is this 'loose end' a blond or a brunette?"

In the face of the implied accusation in his friend's voice, Sirius tutted and shook his head.

"It's not like _that,_ Moony, honestly." He lowered his cup primly into its saucer and cleared his throat. "What little faith you have in me!"

"It's not about faith—it's about experience," Remus replied, pointedly. "And my experience of you is telling me a girl's involved."

Sirius grinned. At least, it _mostly_ wasn't like that.

"So what if there is? It's something I have to do for the Order, I swear." He glanced around the room, suspiciously. "The walls have ears, Moony, or I'd tell more now. As it is, it'll have to wait till tonight. I'll give you the whole story when you come back." He jutted out his chin, stubbornly. "Assuming you _are_ coming back."

Remus sighed and ran a hand through the his sandy brow hair. There were already flecks of gray in it, despite the fact that he was not yet 20 years old. He fixed Sirius—who was looking up at him in the uncannily charming manner of a dog trying to wheedle its way out of trouble—and fixed him with a stern look.

"Sirius—"

"You _said_ you wanted to help me," Sirius pointed out, widening his gray eyes in what he hoped came across as guileless. "Well, _this_ is what I need help with. Are you in or not?"

Remus had to stop himself from pointing out that facilitating what he suspected was one of his friend's many paramours was not exactly the best approach to take here.

"Fine, I'll come—but this had better be good." He took another sip of his tea and checked his watch. He stood up, suddenly brisk and businesslike. "I have to go, now, anyway."

Sirius fidgeted on the bed. There was no pretext under which he could justify asking Remus to stay—but the second he left, Sirius would be forced to reckoning with spending the rest of the day shut up in this apartment, incapable of escaping Blacks—until he returned.

"Leaving me to face the wolves, Remus?"

As soon as the words had slipped out of his mouth he regretted them.

His friend, long used to deliberate wolf-related jokes at his expense (after the birthday when Sirius had played nothing but the LP of 'Dancing in the Moonlight' by King Harvest for four hours, nothing would phase him) only gave him a rueful smile.

"After putting up with me for so long, _they_ should be a piece of cake," Remus said, dryly.

Sirius flopped back down the bed, helplessly. A strand of hair fell careless in his eyes—he blew it up out of his eyes and sighed.

"I would face you—any day of the month, full moon included—over my father in a _heartbeat_."

Remus, who had his hand on the doorknob, hesitated.

"Are you sure you're alright—"

"—Don't you have enough of your own problems, Moony," Sirius interrupted him, wryly. "Without taking up _mine_ , as well?"

Remus laughed—predictably enough, at his own expense.

"I'm sure I do—but it won't stop me worrying about yours," he said, gently. "That is what friends do."

"Be nosy gits?"

"Show concern."

Sirius sniffed.

"You and James are two of a kind—both total prats with good intentions. You shouldn't spend so much time with him—he's a bad influence on you." He squeezed the pillow to his chest again. "At least _Wormy_ has the sense not to stick his nose in."

"He doesn't, though." Sirius's hands dropped to his sides and he sat up again. Moony wasn't joking.

"I saw him this morning," Remus continued, mildly—though his tone conveyed a small amount of concern. "He asked after you. Wondered if I had noticed anything odd, lately. He thinks you've being _unusually_ moody." Sirius groaned and buried his face in the pillow once more. "So you see, even Peter can tell something's going on. None of your friends are going to let you silently suffer."

"When have I _ever_ silently done _anything_?"

A smile flitted across Remus's face.

"I'll see you tonight."

And with a cheerful—if tired—salute, Remus turned the doorknob and walked out the door—leaving Sirius with only his thoughts for company.

They, sadly, were the _last_ thing he wanted to be alone with.

He rolled over on his stomach and stared at the clock on the fireplace mantle. It was a little after three, and the rain, which had briefly let up in the early afternoon, was back in full force. Driving sleet was visible through the slight gap in the velvet curtains that Walburga had hung up a few days ago, casting a flickering shadow on the wall. There was a slight draft in the room—Kreacher had taken to lighting the fire every evening at five, and though Sirius had stubbornly resisted the elf's needling demands that it should be kept burning all day, even _he_ was shivering now. His cloak was soaked through from the intermittent drizzling, and he had not yet bothered to take it off.

Of course, he could have easily charmed himself dry—but there was something strangely satisfying in being as physically miserable as he felt inside. It helped Sirius prolong the sensation of being hard done by, and that hot, self-righteous burning in his chest was the only thing keeping him going at this point.

If _that_ ember burned out, he might as well wave the white flag.

Sirius glared at the wall. It was his 'little martyr routine'—the one he'd been 'doing since he was eight years old'—wasn't that how his father had put it? He let out a soft hiss through his teeth and hit one of the pillows with his fist, taking great pleasure in imagining it to be Orion's face.

Unfortunately, a pretend fist-fight with the man who refused to do the decent thing and grant him a _real_ one could only provide momentary, fleeting satisfaction. After a few punches he had exhausted his enjoyment of it, and the young man rolled onto his back, spreading his arms out wide and staring listlessly at the ceiling. Anger was fast giving way to malaise.

He closed his eyes, grateful for the tea, which was the only thing staving off the throbbing he knew he wouldn't otherwise be feeling between his ears. He had not been lying to Remus—he really _didn't_ know how long he was going to be able to keep this up. Sirius felt trapped in every conceivable way—after this morning, the urgency of that sensation had increased tenfold.

If before now it had felt like he was locked in a room, now the walls were closing in.

That had been the ugliest fight he and Orion had ever had. Worse than the substance of the argument had been the thought that had been plaguing him all afternoon, as he marched in and out of shops trying to get his father's demeaning errands done. Once it had crossed his mind, he could not shake it, and it filled him with a sickly dread that had nothing to do with his hunger.

If his father didn't disown him over _this morning_ , than Orion's threats weren't as empty as his son had first assumed.

He really _was_ playing the long game.

The great irony was that the only person who could help him—in the immediate—was Regulus. Predictably, he had just succeeded in _pissing off_ this key potential ally in his quest to get chucked out of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, once and for all. He rubbed his temples—he had a whole speech planned for his brother, outlining the letter he hoped Reg would write to their grandfather, entreating him to insist Orion's will was put in order. As the 'good' grandson, there could be no argument from Arcturus on that score. That was the only surefire way to get the job done.

How desperate had he gotten, that _Arcturus Black_ was who he was banking on to get him out of this situation?

Sirius's stomach grumbled again—even louder than before. He had eaten nothing today, and the gnawing pain in his lower gut had actually succeeded in eking out his exhaustion for the dominant feeling. The young man sat up on his side, elbow propping his head—and glared at the sandwich and salad that had been left on silver platter for him. His mouth watered at the sight of the meal he had turned his nose up to when Kreacher had first offered it to him.

Sirius reached over and picked at a bit of the greens with his finger, absently. Arugula and watercress.

 _I'd rather starve._

He tossed his head and forced himself to look away from the Walburga-approved food on principle—a principle that was fast seeming just as stupid as his brother had told him it was. He was starving! At this point he couldn't sneak off to the chip shop down the road—Kreacher would be sure to rat him out, and it was not worth giving that elf the satisfaction of bad behavior to report back to his parents. He would only be doing it to get an excuse to see his mistress chew 'Master Sirius' out for wrongdoing—he'd always taken a smug pleasure in that.

Well, he thought, forcing himself to look on the bright side: he had his favorite vice as a solace, in the absence of edible food. Sirius reached into his cloak pocket to pull out the battered box of cigs he always kept in there, and his hand closed around a hard object he wasn't expecting. His eyes widened in recognition, and he pulled the silver hip-flask out of his pocket and held it up in the dim light of his bed room.

Sirius smiled, ruefully—this was the only thing he'd removed from his pockets last night that he'd actually gotten back.

He examined the dent with more curiosity than he'd shown in the study—Merlin, Orion _really_ had hurled it. He laughed quietly and clasped one hand around his one souvenir from the night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how he'd nearly lost it for good.

 _Well, at least_ one _of my problems will be taken care of, after tonight._

It was a small comfort—he considered her, the unassuming brunette with the heart-shaped face and the clear eyes—that most unlikely of catalyst for the high drama and explosive end to his evening.

 _Colette Battancourt._

What had been the odds of running into her again? High, he supposed—England was not a large country, not for their sort of people—but being discovered by her, when it should have been impossible, for he was wearing his own face and not a gigantic ruddy Norwegian—that had been the kicker.

No mere schoolgirl witch could get that lucky _twice._

Being discovered by a person once was a fluke, but twice spoke to some not inconsiderable talent for snooping—or to an insatiable curiosity. Either way, it boded ill for him. Underneath her unassuming exterior, that Colette was deceptively dangerous.

 _But she still doesn't know who I really am,_ he thought, a slow grin spreading over his face. _She has no idea._

It had been the most surprising bit of all. It was a balm for his wounded spirits, to be looked at by those clear and perceptive eyes, and not at once identified as the wayward, scalawag son of Orion and Walburga Black—the son she knew all about (more than she even realized!) A heady, freeing feeling had swept over him—to think he could wear his own face and not be seen as an extension of _them_. Sirius had never wanted less to be in his own skin, to be who he was born—Colette Battancourt proved that there were still people who saw him as he wanted to see himself—as wholly his own, autonomous, disconnected from everyone and everything not of his own choosing.

He wanted to prolong that sensation for as long as possible. _That_ was the reason, Sirius kept telling himself, he had not told her the truth, then and there. He wanted to pretend he wasn't Sirius Orion Black for just a little longer—and she was the only person in England who he could still fool.

Of course, it wasn't likely they would meet again. After tonight, he very much doubted she would be staying at Grimmauld Place at all—or even still in Britain.

He felt a little bad about tricking her, but…it was probably for the best, in the end.

But there were still eight hours before he knew for sure, about probably at least two before Walburga showed up. He was tired—but too distracted to sleep. Sirius shifted his head on the pillow, and the book bag still half-full of Phineas Nigellus's moldering letters that Regulus had unceremoniously chucked at him came into view.

His brother's words returned to him—and in a rare moment of acquiescence to Regulus's better common sense, he sighed and pulled the bag towards him. Reg was right—if he didn't at least half-arse trying to find some proof of the necklace's origins, Orion would be absolutely livid—and knowing his father, would surely find some new way of torturing his eldest son as punishment for this disobedience. Better not to be called lazy on top of everything else.

Besides—the past, even if it _was_ the tedious and insular past of his family, was a distraction from the problems of here and now. He needed that.

When he reached into the bag, pulling out and opening the first volume of the letters of 1868, a thick layer of dust flew up into his face. Sirius coughed—and got a mouthful of hundred year old dirt for his trouble. He fumbled over to the bedside table and groped for the jug of water there. When he did, his hand brushed against the tray of food again.

Sirius gulped down some water and returned to staring hungrily at the sandwich; his stomach gurgled again. Well, if she wasn't hovering over him to prove to herself that she could make him eat what she wanted, Sirius supposed there wasn't any harm in trying it.

He picked it up—there were a stack of four on the tray—and took a tentative nibble.

The watercress had a peppery, hearty taste. There was a thin layer of Serrano ham on the sandwich, too, and goat's cheese—two of his favorites, and evidently added on his mother's instruction, to give the sandwich some substance.

He chewed, slowly. It tasted…fine.

It really wasn't that bad at all. The realization that he didn't hate watercress as he had the last time he'd been forced to eat it—probably sometime around 1969—hit him with the force of a speeding train, and he was suddenly more annoyed than he would have been if it was the bitterest sandwich on earth.

He shoved the rest in his mouth, chewing with gusto, and then grabbed the tray, sticking the fork into the limp salad and digging into that as well. Sirius determined that if he was going to wade into the miasma of the gossip and family squabbling of the ancestors he had only ever known as portraits, at least he'd have a full stomach when he did.

He ate quickly, and when he'd finished inhaling the salad and sandwiches he chugged the rest of the pitcher of water—almost as if he hoped to get the taste of the food out of his mouth.

The wizard leaned back against the headboard, blanket nestled around his shoulders. Sirius forced his mind to focus on the words in front of him, and not to think about the possibility that his mother had been right on that far away day, when, exasperated at Sirius's stubborn refusal to eat the things he was given, Walburga had uttered what now felt to him prophetic words.

 _"_ _Sirius Orion Black—one day you'll see you could like the things we tell you are best perfectly well, if you only gave them a chance. I only hope I live to see the day you admit it and apologize for all the grief you've given me—when you admit at_ last _that I was right about everything."_

 _You won't,_ he thought, shivering from the cold and—something else. _Not ever._

* * *

"I _told_ you it would all be fine."

Colette, who had been focusing very intently on not tripping on her soggy skirts as she climbed up the tall steps to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, visibly started at Mrs. Malfoy's words. When she turned her head to look up at Narcissa—her friend's aunt was ahead of them, lifting the enchantments on the door to the townhouse—the expression she found on her new friend's face was a reassuring smile, like that of an older sister.

Or at least, what Colette had always _imagined_ an older sister's smile to be like.

She swallowed and nodded, smiling back with a tad less confidence about entering the Black family's home than her newfound friend evidently felt. That was, she supposed, unsurprising—though she had only known Narcissa as a married woman, her friend _was_ a Black by blood, and had no doubt been to her aunt and uncle's house dozens of times. If the elegant ash-blonde at Colette's left had ever been intimidated by the house—and Narcissa seemed so confident to her that she doubted it—the feeling must have long since faded.

"Hurry up, girls—inside!" Mrs. Black ordered them, briskly, as the door to Number Twelve creaked open. "You'll catch your death out here."

The two young witches hurried up the steps—Colette falling naturally half a step behind Narcissa, in deference to age and position.

At the sight of that high-ceilinged entry hall, the girl let out a low gasp. It was grandly furnished in garnet-red and ebony paneling, just as her great-aunt had assured her it would be, considering the position that the Blacks held in magical society in this country—but Eugenie had not warned her that the dark glamour that the Blacks exuded would extend as far as the decor, or that the aura of their home would border on sinister.

She shivered from excitement as much as cold.

"Tea, then?" Mrs. Black asked, them off-handedly, as she stripped off her fine silk gloves. "In the drawing room—that will warm us up."

Narcissa and Colette murmured an ascent to this idea, their teeth chattering.

"I'll fetch your uncle—" She fixed her eyes beadily up the stairs. "No doubt he's shut up in his study, thinking we don't know he's there. If he's not going to have tea with us, the least he can do is say 'hello.'"

Colette, who after last night's incident with the imposter still lived in dread of Mr. Black's reaction to her coming to stay in his house, shook her head.

"If it's too much trouble, you really don't have to call Mr. Black—and bother him—"

"Nonsense, girl."

She marched up the stairway to the second floor without a second glance back.

In spite of her trepidation, the corner of the girl's mouth turned up. Madame Black was not a woman to be trifled with—she reminded Colette a bit of her own mother, though, she thought, wryly—from the little she'd seen of him, Mr. Black seemed a far more forceful personality than her _papa_.

"Well, what do you think?"

"It's a bit…grand," Colette admitted, diplomatically. In truth, the hall very much appealed to the gothic side of her imagination—as a place to visit, or, in her case, a place out of a novel. Colette was much more at home in cozy, cheerfully lit bright rooms reading about places like Grimmauld Place.

Narcissa smirked, seemingly reading her mind.

"Don't worry," she said, removing her cloak and hanging it on the rack by the umbrella rack Colette thought looked awfully like a troll's foot. "If you married Reggie you wouldn't live _here—_ at least not at first."

The brunette's fingers fumbled with the fastenings of her cloak. Her cheeks flushed bright scarlet.

"You shouldn't speak like that," she mumbled, drying herself off with her wand—her hand was shaking. "Your aunt might hear."

Narcissa shrugged, a little elegant gesture, accentuated by the mink collar of her robes. She rested her hand on the bannister of the stairs, clicking her long French-manicured nails on the wood.

"We came here often, when we were children," Narcissa said, looking up the staircase. Colette couldn't see her face—but she thought her friend's voice sounded very far away. "When we thought we could get away with it—when Uncle Orion couldn't see, I mean—we would slide down this bannister."

"We?"

Narcissa's shoulders tensed. For the first time since Colette had arrived on the shores of England, she saw Mrs. Malfoy falter.

"My—my sister and I."

Her voice was devoid of emotion, careless—too careless, the falsity in her brittle tone plain. Colette wondered if she was aware that she got very quiet and odd whenever the subject of her sisters—in the plural, came up. The French witch only knew of the mysterious middle Black sister through idle gossip, picked up from her aunt. she had, the stories said, made a bad marriage straight out of school, and no one in the family spoke of her.

She had not plucked up the courage to ask Narcissa about her other sister, yet. She might never—though the curiosity that was both blessing and curse meant that she would likely never stop wondering.

"It's a very fine bannister," Colette said, forcibly cheerful trying to coax the older girl out of her mood. "Maybe we could—slide down it now, while your aunt and uncle are still upstairs."

It had been a feeble attempt, but it did the trick by distracting Mrs. Malfoy from wherever it was in the distant past her thoughts lingered.

"Don't be silly," Narcissa chided, in the slightly superior, sister-knows-best voice she sometimes employed. The brunette had a feeling that, as the youngest, she had picked it up from her own sisters and quite enjoyed getting a chance to employ it on someone else. "We're far too old for such things."

She tossed her magnificent blond head and turned on her sharp heels, clicking them on the floor as she walked past the main staircase and into the drawing room. Colette followed her, glancing around at the murmuring portraits of Black ancestors that watched them. Before she slipped inside the room, she caught sight of the row of stuffed heads of house-elves lining the staircase and shivered again.

Mrs. Malfoy, for her part, seemed to have recovered his spirits, and was now talking animatedly about what they would do for the days leading up to the Black family Christmas party on the 24th.

"I'm sure my aunt and uncle won't be a bother—they'll keep to themselves, not get in the way. They're both of retiring dispositions, anyway—there's a concert tomorrow at the _Orpheum_ , Lucius said he'd meet us—" She turned her head back to look at Colette as she opened the door to the drawing room. "—he'll bring a few friends, that will liven things up. I thought we'd have dinner in tonight—"

Narcissa turned towards the elegant settee and sofa and froze in place so suddenly that her friend bumped into her.

"What is it?"

Narcissa was staring at the floor—where three of the sofa cushions were haphazardly strewn about, marring an otherwise neat-as-a-pin room.

"That's…that's so odd," she murmured, staring at the pillows on the floor. "It's like…"

"Like _what_?" Colette asked.

But before the other could answer her question, the door flew open and Mrs. Black hurried in.

"Orion? Are you in here—?" She stopped at the door when she saw the two girls—sans her husband. "You haven't seen your uncle, have you?"

There was the barest hint of concern in Mrs. Black's voice. Both girls blinked in confusion and shook their heads.

"Isn't he in his study?" Narcissa asked, exchanging a look of mild surprise with Colette. She could not think of the last time Uncle Orion had done anything that had surprised her. In fact, Narcissa was not sure he _ever_ had.

Her aunt jerked her head from side to side.

"No," she said, shortly—then she closed her eyes and assumed the position of the slighted, annoyed wife, which was far more typical—though she would usually not speak so in front of people who weren't in the family, like this Colette Battancourt. "I don't know where that man has gotten to. He's not in the house and he—he didn't leave a note in the study or—on the table in the _foyer_."

An uncomfortable silence followed this statement. Colette was trying very hard not to meet Mrs. Black's eyes, because everything she had learned about this woman suggested that comfort—the suggestion that anything was amiss—would be even less welcome than a question about Mr. Black's possible whereabouts.

Sometimes silence really was the answer, and luckily Colette Battancourt was good at it.

"That's not like Uncle Orion," Narcissa intoned, softly.

"Yes, well—" There was a noticeable strain in Walburga Black's voice that would be difficult for anyone, even a girl as unaccented with her as Ms. Battancourt, to ignore. "I'm certain…where ever he is, he'll be back—"

Abruptly, Mrs. Black cut herself off. She had spotted the sofa cushions on the floor as well, and her reaction was even more strange than Narcissa's. At first she looked merely surprised—but this bewilderment was momentary, and after a second her eyes narrowed, and her expression morphed into one of shrewdness—and recognition.

She turned her head sharply in the direction of her niece.

"Did you find it like this, Narcissa?" Mrs. Black asked, in a tight voice. Her mouth was pressed in a thin line,

"Yes, we did." Narcissa looked around at her aunt, a curious, closed-off expression on her delicate features. "I thought it very… _odd._ Almost as if—"

"—Almost as if _what_?" Walburga snapped, echoing Colette's question—though her voice was glacial.

Colette thought that if Madame Black had looked at _her_ that way, she'd have fainted from fear—but Narcissa was evidently accustomed enough to her aunt's ways not to let it phase her. Her face was a smooth blank, utterly emotionless in the face of the aggressive look the older woman was leveling in her direction.

"…Nothing, Auntie." Mrs. Malfoy shrugged again. "I thought Kreacher might've been called away when he was cleaning and—that was why the room was upended."

'Upended' was an overstatement. The cushions on the floor marred an otherwise spotless room—the glass cabinets, piano, carpets were clean and dusted. That was what made it so odd—though Colette thought their reaction to it was odder, still. It appeared to have some meaning to the two women—be a sign of something she, Colette, could not see.

Mrs. Black nodded slowly at Narcissa's suggestion. The shrewdness that had flashed on her face disappeared, hidden behind the mask that Colette was fast coming to associate with her new friend's family.

The imposter's warning about how she ought to stay away from them came back to her, suddenly, and she felt something on the back of her neck—her hair standing on end.

"Yes—the elf. He'll be behind this—" She snapped her finger briskly and called out, in a voice used to command, "Kreacher—come here, at once!"

There was a loud CRACK, and the Black's weathered old house-elf appeared in front of his mistress, head bowed.

"Mistress Black called for Kreacher?" The elf raised his long-snout, a little confused—when he caught sight of the blond at Walburga's side, he broke into an obsequious smile. "Miss Cissy is here as well! How is the young miss?"

Narcissa gave the elf an indulgent smile, though she didn't stoop to pat him on the head. As the best behaved of her cousins, he had a special fondness for her—though Regulus would always be his favorite.

"Very well." She pulled Colette forward by the sleeve of her robe. Kreacher turned his black eyes to the new girl. "This is my friend, Colette Battancourt. She's come with me for a visit."

Colette smiled kindly at the elf—she had been taught to always be polite around other family's servants, for it would reflect better on your family and show respect to your hosts if you did—but he wasn't looking at her, had not taken his eyes off of Narcissa.

"Miss Cissy is…staying at Grimmauld Place?"

The old creature's confusion was obvious, he turned at once to confirm this with his mistress. She waved at him, airily.

"Yes—Narcissa and her companion will be staying here until Christmas Eve. But that's not your concern, and nor is it why I called you." Mrs. Black thrust her wand in the direction of the floor, where the pillows still lay, an offense to the eyes and to hostesses the world over. "We came in the room and found _this_. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The elf looked where she was pointing—and then a look of surprise, morphing into the same acute recognition flitted across his weathered face.

When he looked up at her, Colette saw a look she didn't think she'd _ever_ seen a house-elf give its master.

The servant was waiting for a cue from her.

"Well?" Mrs. Black asked, staring down her nose imperiously. "Ex—explain this."

Kreacher looked from his mistress's face to the pile of pillows on the floor, little hard face still screwed up in thought. After a moment, he bowed so low to the floor his nose touched it.

"Kreacher thinks—it must've happened before—he set out to do Mistress's task for her," he said, stressing the final word. "In the morning, when Mistress was out of the house—"

"—Very well!" she cut him off, curtly. Her gray eyes had widened in understanding—and just as abruptly she seemed to want the matter dropped. "Mind you don't let it happen again."

In a second Kreacher the elf had righted the cushions, and the room was immaculate again. Mrs. Black and her loyal servant were considering each other in a vaguely conspiratorial manner.

"—On the subject of your task," the Mistress of Grimmauld Place continued, seriously. "Did you do as I instructed?"

The elf bowed and nodded, eagerly.

" _Both_ of them?" she pressed, pointedly.

To this cryptic remark, the elf nodded, pleased with himself.

"Yes, mistress—both."

Walburga nodded and broke into a smile. She was evidently just as pleased at his obedience and success—perhaps what she had asked him to do was very difficult, for there was an aura of triumph around it—but her eyes remained narrowed, sharply fixed on her servant.

"Your _master_ isn't in the house or anywhere to be found." The elf bowed again, as if he had any control over Orion Black's whereabouts, or his knowledge thereof. "Was he over—did he leave a message with you?"

"I believe _I_ can be of service in this matter."

All three women turned. A sly, bearded man in green robes was standing in a landscape that was clearly not his own portrait. He was looking at Mrs. Black with fixed interest—though his clever eyes darted to his great-great-granddaughter and her friend, the nobody.

"It's Phineas Nigellus Black," Narcissa whispered to Colette, in an undertone. "He was a headmaster of Hogwarts, _and_ head of the family."

The man in question—painted in fine oils—gave an ironic little bow to Ms. Battancourt, before turning his attention back to Walburga.

"The Master of the house begs your forgiveness," he drawled, casually. "But he has been called away on rather urgent business of some kind with an…associate."

"What _kind_ of business?" Mrs. Black asked, so put-out by this cavalier dismissal that it seemed she had momentarily forgotten that Narcissa and her friend were even in the room.

Phineas raised an eyebrow.

"The kind that will detain him until your dinner," he replied, sleekly. "He said he would meet you directly, after which no doubt he will discuss the matter with you in more…detail."

Mrs. Black looked as though she wanted to argue, but the portrait gave her an odd, quailing look, and she demurred. He walked out of the dreary landscape, giving another bow to the girls and leaving them alone in the drawing room.

"Kreacher—fetch us tea," Mrs. Black ordered, tonelessly and she went over to one of the sofas and sank into the cushions, seeming all at once very tired. The two younger girls followed her. There was an odd, strained energy in the room, and no one knew quite what to say.

Narcissa cleared her throat.

"You and Uncle Orion are going out for dinner tonight?" she asked, the barest hint of surprise evident in her voice. She had been counting on this evening to show Colette off to her uncle, who was notoriously taciturn in disposition—getting him interested in meeting anyone new or outside his narrow family circle was always a challenge, as was getting him out of the house.

It had never occurred to her that he and his wife would be dining out _two_ nights in a row. That much society was _unthinkable_ for them.

"Yes—we made the plans before we knew you were staying—" Her auntie replied, in a strained voice. "You'll have to have an early supper, I'm afraid. The elf is coming with us."

"So we'll have the place to ourselves?"

"You will," Mrs. Black remarked, dryly, leaning her head back on the pillow in a rare display of repose. "I trust two _sensible_ girls can keep themselves out of trouble for one evening."

Narcissa exchanged an amused look with her friend. Something in the pit of Colette's stomach squirmed at Mrs. Black's inadvertent allusion to what her young guest was planning on doing tonight (An assignation! _Her_!). A jumble of excitement and fear churned inside of Colette's stomach, and it was only a quarter of an hour later, after a cup of tea and three biscuits, that she emerged from her day-dreamy state into the land of the living again.

"When will your trunks be arriving?" Walburga asked—they told her this afternoon (Narcissa had gone ahead and asked for Colette's to be sent for before she had gotten the go-ahead to, something the younger girl would've have not had the nerve to do), and she gave the elf, who was waiting on them, instructions to make sure the beds were made up for them.

"Narcissa always stays in the Rose Room, on the ground floor," Mrs. Black informed her. "We have guest rooms on the second and third floors of the house—"

"—May I have one on the third?" Colette blurted out, the caffeine from the tea and the thought of the hidden staircase one flight above making her unusually daring. "I do—so love a room with a view."

Walburga blinked, in surprise. Narcissa's friend was usually so quiet—when she did speak, it was with a curious and frank style she was unused to from young females.

"The only view is of the Muggle street." Mrs. Black wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I hope you don't find _them_ interesting."

Colette shook her head, contritely. She might've been in country bumpkin in the eyes of her Parisian cousins, but she knew enough about society to realize that it was never a good idea to show too much interest in Muggles or their strange ways.

Besides—there was something far more interesting that awaited her tonight.

It was just a matter of getting to it.

* * *

 **Happy birthday Sirius! And thank you to everyone who voted for _In the Black_ in the 2018 Marauder Medals contest. The story placed second, thanks to ya'll. It means a lot. I hope you will continue to read and enjoy.** **I love writing the story, but it's a ton of work, and your comments and enthusiasm keeping me going.**


	9. Chapter 9

_"The teenage Sirius had plastered the walls with so many posters and pictures that little of the walls' silvery-gray silk was visible. Harry could only assume that Sirius's parents had been unable to remove the Permanent Sticking Charm that kept them on the wall, because he was sure they would not have appreciated their eldest son's taste in decoration. Sirius seemed to have gone out of his way to annoy his parents._

 _There were several large Gryffindor banners, faded scarlet and gold, just to underline his difference from all the rest of the Slytherin family. There were many pictures of Muggle motorcycles, and also (Harry had to admire Sirius's nerve) several posters of bikini-clad Muggle girls."_

 ** _\- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 9**

* * *

Mr. Black watched Dumbledore pace up and down the length of his office, feeling that his hair would be as gray as the old man's before he was through with this ritual. He had been observing the action since the wizard had emerged from the pensieve ten minutes before, and the muffled silence of that room was broken only by the occasional murmuring or muttering to himself.

The headmaster's former pupil could make no sense of it. Orion didn't know why he hadn't left—only that _leaving_ had seemed too much like running away, and that through the dull fuzziness of the alcohol that was already wearing off, he could still hear Sirius's accusations ringing in his ears.

He wanted another drink—if only to stave off his dark thoughts and the premature hangover that was already pounding in his temple.

Abruptly, Dumbledore ceased retracing his own steps and turned towards his reluctant guest. He gave Orion a piercing look, almost as if he'd forgotten the younger man was still there—and that the sight of him was a reminder of entirely different problem he had to solve.

"Well?" Mr. Black asked, straightening up in his chair. "Do you—can you make _sense_ of it?"

Professor Dumbledore was crossing back around to his seat behind the desk, so Orion couldn't catch sight of his expression at the question.

"I have some idea—theories, rather." He settled comfortably into his chair and steepled his fingers. Dumbledore hummed in that purposefully pleasant and vague manner that had annoyed Orion even when he was a schoolboy. "Several—they may or may not be correct."

Perhaps it was the effect of having been kept in suspense for so long, but when he fixed Orion with his patented mild smile, Mr. Black found it even more unbearable than normal.

"Considering that you saw fit to put my son's life at risk to get _that_ —" He threw a hostile look to the basin where his own memory still glimmered. "—You don't seem all that certain. Or all that interested in its contents."

Interested in discussing its contents with _him_ was the subtext Mr. Black hadn't even realized was present in his words until they'd already left his mouth, and no amount of indignant sputtering could reclaim them. Dumbledore pretended not to notice the wholly unsuitable accusation that he had not allowed Orion into his confidences.

"Oh, I _am_ interested," the old wizard said, his voice soothing and patient. "Very much."

Dumbledore tilted his fine-boned elder wood wand into he pensieve, and the perfect image of the card room—Orion's own memory of the previous night, burned into his eyes—rose from the stone basin. A table of men—men he knew well, or thought he knew well. _His_ people. The sound of conversation was distant, muffled. The Black patriarch found himself transfixed by the image of his own face, hardly able to recognize the composed mask he found there.

Was _that_ how he looked to the world?

Mr. Black looked up and saw that it was _he that_ Dumbledore was watching, not the memory, but the genuine article.

"Your recollections will keep." He touched the silver liquid again, and it fell smoothly back into the basin. "I have more pressing concerns, for the present."

Orion's temper stirred—more 'pressing concerns' than the information he'd extracted from his younger son and sent the elder to fetch?

"Like what?" he asked, acidly.

"Like you." Dumbledore replied, softly. "I was wondering how you were—getting on."

Orion stared at him—every time he thought this man could sink no lower, he topped himself.

"How I'm 'getting on'?" he repeated, incredulous. "What am I to take _that_ to mean?"

The older man looked as though he was fighting back a smile.

"It's an inquiry as to your well being." He folded his hands neatly in front of his chest while Orion's swelled with indignance. "The custom of asking is quite ordinary."

"Well, in this case it's _unnecessary_ and _unwanted_!" Mr. Black replied, feeling as peevish and cross as his eldest son—probably due to the adverse effect of the boy's presence. "I don't know what possibly could have prompted you to believe otherwise."

"I would think that fairly obvious," Dumbledore remarked, in a mild voice, peering down his crooked nose at his companion. "Last night you were with most of your family for the first time since—the night your younger son brought you to your elder's door."

Orion blinked and pulled his gaze away from Dumbledore's, instead focusing on a spot on the wall.

"And? What of it?"

"Deceit is not in your nature, Orion. And being under that much scrutiny _can_ be trying." Dumbledore had the audacity to look at him with concern. "As you are living a double-life—"

"—You seem very _eager_ to discuss my family's personal business!" Orion snapped, coldly. "I _myself_ would rather discuss the—Death Eaters." He stumbled over the phrase, as if he found it in bad taste to utter aloud. Mr. Black narrowed his eyes and gave the older man a hard look.

"Though in _this_ case," he continued, not hiding his bitterness. "There doesn't appear to be much of a _difference_."

Dumbledore looked up at him. If he heard the needling tone—and he was such a wily old wizard it was impossible to think it could have escaped him—he refused to take the bait.

Orion's lip curled.

"You must not trust me," he said, after a moment.

Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair, expression as placid as ever.

"What makes you think that?"

What a sly non-denial—and so neatly phrased! Orion could almost admire it. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and scowled.

"I can't imagine any _other_ reason why you wouldn't see fit to tell me that my niece's husbands were with— _them._ "

Dumbledore, to his credit, didn't bother denying it.

"Who told you?" he asked, voice tinged with mild curiosity. "Was it Sirius?"

At the very thought of his progeny confiding in him, Orion let out a dour laugh.

"Hardly! My son was not in a particularly _revealing_ mood." He tapped the rim of his empty glass, eyebrows furrowed, pensively. "I gleaned just enough from him to guess the rest. I had already caught Rabastan Lestrange sneaking into the library for a clandestine meeting with—someone."

Who that 'someone' was didn't need to be said—the sneer of disapproving contempt said more than words. He had never cared much for _either_ of his nephews-in-law—it was somewhat a relief not be constrained by the law of custom to have to pretend to like them more than he did.

Merlin knew _this_ man didn't give a damn.

"Frank said that you told him they—that is, he and Sirius—were expected." Dumbledore lowered his steepled fingers onto the table. "Who tipped you off?"

"Lucius Malfoy." Mr. Black jerked his head in the direction of the pensieve. "He and Rodolphus were—not making much effort to keep their voices down." His expression blackened. "The Lestranges never _have_ been known for discretion."

At this, the headmaster seemed troubled—but unsurprised. He was still staring thoughtfully at Orion, face a smooth blank.

"If you sent my son after them, it follows you _knew._ " Orion drew himself up, more out of habit than any real attempt to intimidate. "And yet you said _nothing_." Mr. Black's nostrils flared. "Don't you think I was owed the _truth_?"

Dumbledore nodded, conceding the point affably.

"Perhaps. It _was_ my idea to keep it from you, at any rate. I thought it better, given your choice to remain in society, that you know as little as possible. But—" He paused a fraction of a second, and his voice grew a little colder. "—Forgive me, Orion—I find it difficult to believe a man of your intellect was _entirely_ without suspicions."

Orion felt the sting of the pointed accusation as keenly as a whip-crack. It might not have been _shouted_ at him, but it was no less of a rebuke. He stared at Dumbledore, momentarily at a loss, forced to ask the question of himself— _had_ he known? All those nights Regulus was out of the house, had come home late—he could hear him walking up the steps to his bedroom, that unassuming timid step, so different from the defiant stomp of his older brother. He had gotten up from the desk to check only once. The sight of Regulus's blood-shot eyes, the white face, the strangled whisper with which he had wished his father goodnight—all that had disquieted him so much that from then on, he had ceased stirring from his chambers after dark.

Could it still be called turning _a blind eye_ when it was staring you in the face?

"Do you think _they_ knew it was him?" he asked, gripping his glass firmly. "The boy, I mean."

"I doubt it." Dumbledore leaned back in his chair—Orion found the image arresting. He had never seen him so informal. "If Lucius _had_ known the second man was your son, it's unlikely he would've set you on his trail."

"It wasn't his idea to involve me, though—it was my father's, and he had the tip from Abraxas Malfoy."

"Really?" He furrowed his brow. "What did Arcturus know?"

"Not much. _He_ thought they were gatecrashers," Orion said, leaning his elbow against the desk, staring absently into the pensive. "If he'd known one of them was his grandson, believe me—he'd probably have tried to catch Sirius himself."

He smiled, thinly—in that event, the boy would've certainly gotten the _thrashing_ he'd be angling for.

Dumbledore sighed. The phoenix in the corner stirred on its perch, letting out a soft cooing noise. Its master looked over at the creature, frowning. His eyes were clouded and his expression more troubled than Orion had ever seen.

"If they were expecting _anyone_ , it would be Frank Longbottom." He turned his face back towards Orion, looking a little chagrined. "He is an Auror of some renown—this is the kind of mission they would expect him to be on. Sirius, on the other hand…"

The old man trailed off, wearily. Orion felt the anger of last night—the anger that had built-up like a shaken fizzy drink as he paced up and down in his study, the anger that he had managed to suppress in favor of the more pressing paternal rage he had accumulated—stir up again.

His anger at the man who had put his son in danger in the first place might've run less hot, but it was no less potent.

"You should _not_ have sent him to do this," he said, bluntly.

Dumbledore sighed again.

"I believe you're right." Mr. Black's grim frown slid off his face, replaced with a look of surprise. "Everything taken in the balance…it _was_ a mistake."

This admission only made Orion more furious.

"Then _why_ did you do it?" he demanded, rising out of his chair.

"I thought, under the circumstances—" Dumbledore paused—just long enough to give the man towering above him a piercing look. "That what Sirius _needed_ was a show of confidence."

Orion remained frozen and stoically silent—but Dumbledore, penetrating as he was, seemed to read the truth in his companion's face.

"I _still_ believe that's what he needs. Though—" The old man's eyes narrowed a fraction, Orion shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "—I don't believe he needs it from _me_."

The delicate suggestion hung in the air between Professor Dumbledore and Mr. Black.

"What he _needs_ is discipline—" Orion groused, waspishly, sitting back down. "And to be—reigned in, for once."

Dumbledore didn't argue with him—for that he was grateful. Though he would never admit it to his former teacher, he was very aware that if that _were_ true, it was his fault and not the boy's headmaster.

And if the fault was his, it fell to him to remedy his error. He had every intention of doing so—he only hoped it wasn't too late.

They sat together in silence, Mr. Black nursing the empty glass. He could tell the wily old wizard was resisting the urge to offer him another—to tease him. If he did, Dumbledore would be lucky not to have the finest mead in the country dripping down his beard.

"How long has he been— _working_ for you in this way?" He spat out, after another long silence. "I suppose you waited until he was of age—or has he been spying for you since he ran off?"

"He joined the Order after he graduated, with the rest of his friends. There are no Hogwarts students in our ranks."

"What a comfort that must be to the parents."

Mr. Black's heavy sarcasm went unremarked upon.

"I do not recruit among school-age children, Orion," Dumbledore replied, cooly. "Which is more than Lord Voldemort can say."

The dark-haired wizard recoiled, as if he had been burned—furious, but before he could express his indignation, the other man steepled his fingers and looked up at the ceiling.

"What does your father think of all this?"

This complete change of tact momentarily surprised the man across the desk from him, and had the desired effect of disarming him into answering.

"I've never discussed it with him,"—he knew without Dumbledore saying it what he was referring to. "Blacks don't take sides in wars that aren't their own."

At least, not openly—and not as a whole. Regulus and Sirius were living proof of that, and Orion was sure Arcturus had more than an idea that his only two grandsons were on opposite sides. There was very little that got past him.

"Isn't this _your_ war, Orion?"

He thought for a long moment before replying.

"It wasn't." Orion raised an eyebrow. "At least, I didn't think it was. I'm less sure, now."

"What changed?"

"Necessity is the mother of _re_ invention." Orion gestured to the memory and gave a droll smile. "And I have a need. If I leave my family's future in the hands of my son and his rascally friends, as you seem to have, I fear the lot of us will be dead by New Years."

"And what about Walburga?" Dumbledore asked, curiously. "Surely she must have an opinion."

"What, about politics?" Orion asked, laughing. "She doesn't, believe me. It's the one subject she actually defers to me on."

Dumbledore smiled.

"And how has she been holding up?"

Mr. Black laughed, bleakly.

"Admirably, considering the circumstances. One thing can be said for that woman, she'll always make the best of any situation, no matter how dire." Mr. Black looked up from the desk at Dumbledore, expression wry. "She's annoyed with me because I couldn't free her from the tedious obligation of hosting our family on Christmas Eve. She'd rather spend the day with her worthless progeny. You can see her priorities are well-met."

Dumbledore's mustache twitched.

"An understandable preference, from a mother."

Orion shook his head.

"It doesn't come from a place of sentiment, believe me." He looked out the window. The snow was falling thickly—not even the tree tops or the gamekeeper's hut was visible now. The sill was at least four inches thick with it.

The walk back to the village would be a long one.

"She thinks if she takes her eyes off of him for even a moment, he'll run away again."

He ran a hand through his hair, distractedly—not meeting Albus Dumbledore's eye. He didn't need to to know what he'd find there.

"How long do we have?" Mr. Black asked, quietly. "Truly?"

"Lord Voldemort remains encamped in the north. I can't be certain—" Dumbledore folded his arms behind his back and rose from the table. "I would say you can rely on at least a week before he returns. After that—well, there's no way to be certain. He could call Regulus at any time."

The boy's father nodded, slowly. It was what he had expected, but to hear the reality of their situation uttered in that cold and bloodless style—was more comforting than having it bellowed at him by Sirius.

"That's more than I could have hoped for." He tapped his fingers on the desk, staring at the bird, again. It had an unnerving expression of pity that reminded him unpleasantly of its master. "I knew this couldn't go on for long. There's nothing for it."

Looking up at Dumbledore now, Mr. Black felt as though he was the older of the two men. He stood up, trying to recover his wounded dignity—all brisk no-nonsense. It was a sham, but Albus Dumbledore, in a misguided attempt at his own special brand of kindness, was determined to humor him in it.

For that—and nothing else—he was grateful.

"Where will you go?"

"The continent, I think. I've a few connections, still—I've begun to make discreet enquiries." He sighed. "The trouble is that she's not going to want to leave without both of them, and _he_ won't want to come."

Dumbledore's bright blue eyes lingered on his face, his slumped shoulders—his entire being.

"Have you spoken to your wife?"

"No." Mr. Black smiled—but it was a sad smile, now. "I thought I'd give Walburga her Christmas, at least. There's not much else I can do for her."

"I'm not referring to your plans to leave the country, Orion."

Mr. Black's breath caught in his throat—for Dumbledore was looking at him with such pity that it made the question of what he was referring to unmistakable.

"Consign your interfering in my private affairs to the ones that concern the _damned_ war."

He smoothed out his winter cloak, picking up his wand to dry out the rest of it—determinedly not meeting the other man's gaze. Dumbledore continued staring at him piercingly, but his expression was otherwise calm.

"As you wish." Dumbledore picked up the glass vial and funneled the silvery liquid back into it. "But I think you ought to speak to your family."

"Regulus is very frail still, and my wife has _quite_ enough to worry about without—"

"—Sirius would want to know, too," he interrupted, bluntly.

Mr. Black's lip curled.

"Considering he told me this morning he _longs_ for my imminent demise, I have no desire to inform that whelp he may yet get his wish."

The sharpness of this statement signaled, unequivocally, that the audience was at an end. Dumbledore held out the memory to its owner. The very sight of it repulsed Orion.

"I thought you needed that."

"Not anymore." Dumbledore pressed it gently into the younger wizard's hand. It was with the utmost reluctance that Orion Black let his finger curl around the hard glass.

"If you're giving this back to me…I take it you _understood_ it."

Orion stared at his own recollection—the one he would gladly have never placed back in its rightful place, if he had his druthers. It was better forgotten.

Dumbledore smiled, serenely.

"Oh, no—not at all. No more than you did, I'm sure."

He walked around the other side of the desk. Mr. Black stared at him in astonishment.

"Then why—"

"—The only person who can tell us what it means is the Death Eater the message was intended for in the first place." Dumbledore stroked his beard. "I can do nothing with it."

"What do you expect _me_ to do?"

"Well…you _could_ ask him, for a start."

Mr. Black swallowed. His mouth felt unnaturally dry.

Slowly, Orion took out his wand and uncorked the vial, placing the memory back into his temple gently. He glared at Albus Dumbledore—but without much feeling. The old man clasped him gently on the shoulder—and to his own surprise, Mr. Black didn't jerk away.

"If I do this—and I am not for a minute saying I _will_ —" Orion shoved the empty vial back into his pocket. "—I want it understood that it won't be for _you_."

Professor Dumbledore smiled—but the eyes behind his spectacles shined with an unmistakeable cunning. It wasn't something people said about him much, but Orion was beginning to feel he should get more credit for it.

The old Muggle-lover really _ought_ to have been in Slytherin.

"I would expect nothing less."

* * *

"I don't know what all the fuss is about, Minerva—hardly seems the sort of thing we need to get _Albus_ involved with—"

Mopping his brow, the portly wizard with the walrus mustache had to jog to keep up with his dark-haired colleague, who was briskly walking down the hallway of the castle surrounded aura of determination—and even _then_ she was at least three strides ahead of him.

"Well, Horace," Minerva McGonagall said, through pursed lips. "As _you_ refuse to punish your students in their wrongdoing—"

"— _Alleged_ wrongdoing!"

"—It falls to _me_ to ask the headmaster to intervene." She jerked her head in front of her, hawklike gaze fixed on what was in front of her. "And I intend to."

The man following close at her heels muttered and huffed something under his breath ( _"Balderdash—damned nonsense, if you ask me!"_ ) but he did not bother arguing with her. As he was in that moment so short of breath he could hardly get out a word, it would've been difficult, in any case.

Minerva rolled her eyes and quickened her pace. The thing that was most frustrating about Horace Slughorn was that one _never_ knew if he was being deliberately obtuse or not. Beneath his affable, rotund exterior was a man Minerva McGonagall knew capable of the shrewdest calculation imaginable, and what was worse—he could slip in and out of modes effortlessly.

It made him, at times, a rather trying colleague—particularly for a woman who prided herself on straight-forwardness as much as the no-nonsense Transfiguration professor did. She knew Dumbledore had a soft-spot for him, when all was said and done—and she had long-since nursed a suspicion he enjoyed siding with Horace Slughorn just to annoy her.

"An incident that has five witnesses is hardly an 'alleged'—"

They had just turned the corner of the corridor leading to Dumbledore's office—the destination where the behavior and punishment of Donald Strickland and Augustus Nott would be debated—when the stone gargoyle that guarded the door sprang aside, and a middle-aged man shuffled out.

He looked vaguely familiar, but Minerva didn't immediately recognize the distinguished-looking dark-haired wizard—albeit wearing a hang-dog expression—who was pulling his traveling cloak around him and surreptitiously looking in the direction of the main hall. Horace stopped dead in his tracks.

"Merlin's beard!" He leaned forward, then shouted across the hall, voice jubilant, "That isn't—is that _Orion Black_?"

Mr. Black stumbled and tripped half-way down the last step—but Slughorn was so quick he was able to catch him by the arm before he fell. It was a close shave, and he had to use one hand to catch the metal bracket of a torch.

"Steady on, Orion, m'boy, steady on—" Horace tugged him up by the elbow and dusted him off, unnecessarily. Slughorn chortled good-naturedly. "No sea legs yet, eh?"

The man straightened up, trying in haste to recover his dignity. By nature, at least, Professor McGonagall thought he had a more than enough to spare, but by the time Minerva had reached them he had mostly succeeded in the task. She didn't know Orion Black by anything more than reputation, but she thought he looked rather haggard and disheveled, and quite at a loss as to how he had ended up with Horace Slughorn at his elbow.

"I apologize, Professor Slughorn, I—" He took out a fine gold pocket watch and fumbled with it. "You—you _startled_ me."

The Head of Slytherin House waved one pudgy finger in his former student's face.

"Horace—how many times must I tell you, call me _Horace_. I haven't been your professor in over thirty years, man!" His bright eyes brimmed with affection. The unexpected appearance of an elusive old favorite had apparently banished his sour mood over his current charges' disciplinary hearing. "It's been an age, my dear boy—how _are_ you? What's all the news?"

To this inquiry Orion Black muttered a few semi-coherent platitudes.

"And how's Walburga?"

At the mention of his wife, Orion's expression chilled perceptibly.

"She's well," he said, shortly. "Enjoying her…customary good health."

"Excellent, excellent—good to hear—" He stepped back from Orion, looking every bit the spider who has unexpectedly come across a particularly succulent fly, and doesn't quite know what to do with himself, yet. "But—what, eh—brings you _here_?"

He managed to pose the question with just the right amount of studied, easy casualness—but McGonagall couldn't help noticing how his shrewd eyes darted between Orion's face and the staircase leading up to Dumbledore's office.

Minerva, taking pity on the wizard (and seeing the undisguised eagerness on her colleague's face, and the younger man's discomfort at it), interrupted the line of inquiry by clearing her throat loudly behind Slughorn's left shoulder.

Horace had all but forgotten she was there, for when he turned around to find the source of the intrusive noise, he started.

"Oh, Minerva—I'd completely—" He made a vague gesture between the witch and wizard. " _You_ know Orion Black, don't you?"

At the sight of her, Mr. Black slipped the smooth and impenetrable mask she had long associated with his family back on. They locked eyes, and he nodded, perfectly polite—though a tad distant.

"We've…corresponded," he said, in a flat voice.

There was an awkward pause. Mr. Black suddenly recovered the usual senses of a man of his age and position, and stepped in front of the stone gargoyle, as if to let them pass.

"I don't wish to detain you, if you have an appointment with the headmaster—"

"—Now _wait_ just a moment!" Slughorn crossed his arms and gave the taller man the suspicious look of an old schoolmaster. "You weren't going to come all this way and not see me, were you?"

"I—that is, I wasn't—"

But before Mr. Black could even begin mounting a defense of himself, Horace had pulled him closer by his shoulder. He peered into the taller man's face with real consternation.

"I say—are you quite alright, my boy?" He rubbed his hands together, anxiously. "You don't look yourself at _all_."

The surprise at finding him in such an odd position having worn off, the old potions master was now observing his former pupil with faint alarm. Under this unwanted scrutiny, Orion shifted his gaze to Professor McGonagall—and found _she_ was watching him just as closely, though with more curiosity than concern.

He forced himself to look back at Slughorn.

"I'm…perfectly well," he muttered, without much conviction. Slughorn exchanged a look of disbelief with his colleague—it was obvious from the expression on Minerva's face that she saw the lie for what it was, as Horace did. "I beg you—not concern yourself."

"Oh, come now! You're pale as death." He squeezed Orion's shoulder affectionately—and with a firm grip. He was a surprisingly strong man, under all his vanity. "I can't let you go back out in that unpleasantness just yet. It's practically a blizzard out there."

Horace Slughorn clapped his hands together, in the studied manner of someone pretending they have just had a completely spontaneous idea.

"Whatever it is that's ailing you, I'm sure it's nothing a good, strong _whisky_ can't cure."

Orion Black smiled, thinly.

"If only that were true. Whisky cannot rid me of—" Mr. Black cut himself off, ran a hand through his hair, and looking between the two professors, gave them identical ironic looks. His eyes settled on McGonagall, still watching him with faint curiosity.

"I feel I owe you an apology."

McGonagall blinked swiftly, utterly taken aback at being addressed, thusly. Mr. Black was in deadly earnest—though careful examination also suggested he was laughing—at himself, not her.

"What—whatever for?"

"All those owls—I was _sure_ you must've been exaggerating. But _now_ —" He laughed, dryly. "Now I think it more likely you were holding _back_. I'm amazed this castle is still standing."

For a moment Professor McGonagall simply stared at him, mouth slightly open—not sure if she understood exactly what it was the man was referring to (she felt she did, but that was—well, impossible!) when Horace let out a booming laugh.

"Oh— _I_ see how it is!" He clapped his protege on the shoulder, jovially. "The boys aren't giving you _that_ much trouble, are they?"

You could have cut glass with his look, it was so hard. The wrinkles between Professor McGonagall's eyebrows grew more pronounced.

"Who else?" Mr. Black asked, his voice as dry and brittle as autumn leaves. Minerva and Horace exchanged a look. "They're in a competition to see which can drive me to the madhouse first."

Horace frowned.

"Oh, I don't believe that of Regulus—he was always such a well-behaved lad—and besides—" Horace tilted his head, thoughtfully. "He's in Marseille, isn't he? I had a letter from him just yesterday."

Orion's expression darkened.

"My youngest is _quite_ the correspondent," he said, eyes flickering with repressed emotion. He turned them to McGonagall again. "I notice _you_ aren't leaping to the _other one's_ defense."

She arched her eyebrow, with some humor.

"No, of course not—you know him too well." His mouth twisted in an ironic smile. "I don't suppose you'd take him _back_ , would you?"

In spite of her surprise, Minerva felt the corner of her mouth twitch upwards.

"Seven years were quite long enough, Mr. Black."

Mr. Black let out a tired laugh and smiled, ruefully, clearly unsurprised by her answer. He and the witch looked at each other, mutual understanding evident—the man who had been both their potions' masters shook his head and tutted loudly.

"Oh—bosh, Minerva! You're all talk. Sirius is a charming boy—a bit of a rabble-rouser, I'll grant, but I know you're quite as fond of him as I am." Horace leaned over to Orion, in a conspiratorial fashion, round eyes still fixed on McGonagall. "Why—you told me yourself just last week that Sirius Black was one of the brightest students you ever taught."

He spoke these words in a definitive tone, for it was true that if there was one thing Minerva McGonagall was not known for, it was idle flattery. Mr. Black, she noted, with some amusement, did not seem quite as impressed with this supposed compliment of his eldest son's abilities. There was something refreshing about it—for most parents she spoke to couldn't believe their children ever capable of wrong-doing.

"He and James Potter were also two of the _worst-behaved_ students I've ever taught," Minerva added, dryly. "I am less concerned with what magic my students are capable of than the _use_ they put it to, Horace."

"In the case of my elder son, I think that was, on the whole— _wise._ "

Since she had become an Animagus, people often told Minerva that she had begun to look more and more catlike. She, for her part, thought there had always been something of the feline about her, and at that cryptic remark she gave Orion Black a look of suspicion that would not have seemed out of place in a back alley, hiss to follow. The wizard—he really did have the haughty look of his family in spades, and no matter how many Blacks she taught, it always made her bristle—seemed to be laughing at some private joke—at her expense, this time.

She didn't like it one bit.

"I don't know what you mean," McGonagall replied, her voice colder.

"As for his Transfiguration, I must commend you—his skills _are_ prodigious. As to how he has used them, however—" He paused here, a curious and terribly _Slytherin_ look on his face, and folded his arms behind his back. "—Well, I wouldn't trouble yourself over it. _I_ have it well in hand, and as you say—happily, the boy's not your concern anymore."

Her eyebrows shot clear up into her hairline. Horace, still hovering at her right, cleared his throat. The potions master's darted back and forth between them. Slughorn's awkwardness battled his insatiable curiosity—for he loved gossip, above all else, particularly when it involved pet students—and there was no more glamorous a grouping than the Blacks, among his very favorites.

They satisfied his taste for melodrama, above all else.

"I think that drink is order, Orion—"

"—I _am_ sorry, but I really don't have time, professor," Mr. Black interrupted him, firmly. "I have a dinner, I _must_ get back to London."

"Nonsense." Slughorn shook his head and wagged a finger, sternly—or as stern as he ever could be. "It will fortify your strength!"

"But—"

"—I _insist_." Slughorn's grin grew teasing. "If you're truly _that_ worried about Walburga, I'll write a note for her myself, with your excuses."

Mr. Black dropped the steel-spine act and slumped his shoulders—his old head-of-house had a hand clamped firmly on his arm, and obviously had no intention of letting go.

"I thought you had a meeting with Dumbledore." He turned back to McGonagall, giving her a look of silent appeal. "Both of you—isn't it terribly important?"

Horace flapped his hands in the air, airily.

"Oh, Minerva will make my excuses—" He winked at his colleague, cheerily. "Won't you?"

"What will I tell him, Horace?" Minerva asked, her voice clipped, hawk-eyes still fixed on Orion Black. "This meeting was _your_ idea."

"You'll think of something—and anyway, Albus will understand."

Yes, Minerva thought, as she exchanged a stilted goodbye with the two men and then watched Horace steer his former pupil down the hall, immune to Orion Black's attempt to dislodge himself from his old professor's hold. Albus certainly _would_ understand.

Far better than _she_ did.

* * *

"Where could your father _be_?"

The wax of the tallow candle at the center of her otherwise beautifully laid dining room table dripping onto the table cloth was the only reply Mrs. Black got to her question. It was the third variation on it she had voiced in the thirty minutes that had passed since seven had come and gone—seven being significant as it was the hour they had kept for family dinners since they were married. She could count on one hand the number of times Orion had not entered the dining room precisely at the stroke of the hour in all those years.

And yet, here he was—a full half hour _late_.

Mrs. Black looked down at her elf, waiting expectantly at her feet—and whose leathery face, vexed and worried in equal turn, mirrored the unease she felt in the pit of her stomach.

"There's nothing for it, Kreacher—" Walburga said, briskly. "If he's not here by a quarter till, you'll have to go ahead and—serve the lobster tails."

The elf nodded and hurried off to the kitchen to check on the starter. This left Mrs. Black with her children, flanked on either side of her at the dining room table. One of them was fiddling with the frayed edge of the table cloth, while the other sat, back ramrod straight, staring into his second glass of wine.

"It's not like Father to…be this late," Regulus finally said, in a soft voice.

Walburga blinked and turned to her younger son. She was a little surprised _he_ had been the one to broach the silence, even if it was such an unassuming remark as that. He had not spoken a word since they had sat down a half-hour before. _This_ was not unusual in and of itself—he had always been a quiet boy—but he had been particularly monosyllabic this evening, since she'd arrived an hour earlier to oversee the final preparations for dinner and check on the boys were both safely in the flat.

From the sullen looks he kept shooting at his brother across the table, she guessed that this particularly taciturn mood must trace its origin to some quarrel the boys had had.

"It's not like him to be late at _all_ ," she snapped—though those who knew her well would be able to see the bare trace of anxiety in her tightly-strung voice. "His food will be ruined, at any rate."

She had ostensibly been addressing Regulus, but he had returned to his task of silently glowering at his brother.

Annoyed, Walburga turned to the elder of her children. Sirius, by contrast, was looking handsomely bored and haughty, and pointedly ignoring his younger brother with the kind of studied aloofness that would have made his paternal grandfather proud. He wore a surly expression she knew of old, and had been steadily drinking on the quiet since they sat down.

Both of her sons had dark circles around their eyes. The elf had reported to her that the elder young master had spent much of the afternoon shut up in his room in a high dudgeon. From his sulky mien, his sharp-eyed mother guessed he hadn't managed the nap he _clearly_ needed. Staring idly between her children, Walburga wondered if she was going to have to start slipping sleeping draught into the after-dinner brandy, just to guarantee her children got the proper amount of rest.

She considered Sirius thoughtfully for a moment, and cleared her throat.

"You wouldn't have any idea where your _father_ is, would you, Sirius Orion?"

Sirius shrugged, altogether missing the sly and probing look his mama was giving him.

"None whatsoever." He took a swig of wine and leaned back in his chair—some of the old insolence that Orion had seemingly cured him of returning in his father's absence. "Maybe he's with his mistress."

Regulus opened his mouth and let out a strangled defense of Orion's honor—but Walburga shot him a quelling look and just as quickly he obediently fell silent. The matriarch turned back towards her other son, who was now eyeing her with his customary insolent defiance, practically begging for an argument.

She rolled her eyes heavenward instead. Orion with a mistress—what an absurd thought (as if he would dare!) Sirius could be _such_ a child—she knew full well to acknowledge his ridiculous provoking remarks would be doing exactly as he wanted.

And anyway, she had more pressing concerns regarding her family's activities, at present.

"What did _you_ get up to today?"

Sirius lowered his wine glass to the table and gave her a wary look. He seemed disappointed she had not taken the bait on his mistress crack.

"I thought we agreed to save the _pleasantries_ until all parties were present to save ourselves needless repetition."

She furrowed her brow. Already Mrs. Black felt her resolution not to let him provoke her tested. Still—patience was better, in this case.

"Is it a _pleasantry_ that I should be curious how you occupy yourself?" she asked, dryly. "You weren't here this afternoon when I came by. The girl seemed to think you had an appointment."

A flicker of anxiety passed over his face, and he leaned forward in the chair again. Regulus hazarded another glance up from his bare china plate.

"I was…shopping."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

"And that's all?"

"Yes, that's _all_ ," he retorted, picking the goblet up and taking another gulp. "Trust me, it was enough to keep me busy for the day."

Walburga gave him a long, cool and silent stare. It was the kind of look that some enterprising warlock could have harnessed the energy from to drill through ice caverns of Minsk.

Her son swallowed.

"Well—" His mother picked up her own goblet and took a prim sip from it. "If you say so."

Sirius stared back, uneasy. He felt a pang of that telltale, _primal_ dread that only she could bring about—but a banging knock at the front door to his flat blessedly prevented him from dwelling on it.

Walburga sprang to her feet and whirled around, pulling out her wand, instinctively defensive. There was another series of bangs, and then the door flew open and hit the back wall. As soon as she recognized the tall figure in the door Mrs. Black relaxed, lowering her wand arm and placing her hands on her hips.

"Orion Black—where _have_ you been?" Walburga scolded her husband, her voice severe. "We'll be lucky if the lobster isn't ruined. And what's happened to your cloak—?"

Mr. Black stood stock-still in the doorway, his cloak and hat completely soaked through—and by the looks of it, frozen. She crossed the room to him in a flash, and without being asked, began to strip him of these wet garments.

"I'm sorry for it," Orion said, in a heavy voice, as his wife helped him out of his cloak with a rather forceful pull. "But it couldn't be helped. I was—detained."

He looked tired, and a little red in the face—but from his icy exterior, that could easily be chocked up to the cold—but nothing else in the expression or manner of the middle-aged husband and father of two suggested anything out of the common way.

Apart from his being late, of course—which was enough to make both of his children and wife, above all, suspicious.

"Where _were_ you?" Walburga repeated, more insistently. "I was about to send out a search party."

He sighed and pulled a letter out of the interior pocket of his robes and handed it to her.

"This is for you." She snatched it out of his outstretched hands. Her body was somewhat blocking their view, but both of their sons had their necks craned around her, trying to see. "It should explain everything."

Walburga tore the seal and pulled out the parchment. The second she recognized the handwriting she rolled her eyes and folded up the note again, not bothering to read it.

"Oh, really— _that's_ who you were with? I was starting to think—" She shook her head and banished the stray thought from it with a relieved sigh. "Anyway, you're here now. At last we can _eat_."

She moved to the doorway to call for Kreacher to come in and begin serving the lobster tails—the first course. While she was occupied with this necessary domestic management, Orion took a few steps into the room towards the dining room table that Walburga had taken to setting up in the cramped sitting room every night for their meals. His tired eyes rested on the laden table where his sons sat across from each other, a slowly melting candle between them.

Regulus offered his father a tremulous smile and mumbled a soft greeting. Orion gave the boy a look that he didn't immediately recognize—but then just as quickly his face rested into the usual neutral look, and he nodded, stiffly.

"Good evening, Regulus."

The other figure at the table, by contrast, had frozen like a statue the second his father had come in the house, and was now, jaw tight, grinding his teeth and studiously avoiding looking anywhere near his face. Walburga, busy fussing over her husband's state of general _dishabille_ , hardly noticed.

"Sirius Orion—" She called over her shoulder as she walked the cloak over to the rack, wand occupied with drying it out. "Aren't you going to say 'hello' to your father?"

Mr. Black's eyes moved away from Regulus and onto his older brother. The second their eyes met, Regulus felt as though the room dropped ten degrees.

"Hello, _sir_."

The words were flat and toneless, and there was an odd formality to it completely antithetical to Sirius. More unusual was his face, which was usually so animated—for it was a blank. Orion stared back, cooly.

The resemblance between them in that moment was uncanny.

"Good evening, Sirius." _His_ voice was light and casual—but when he turned to look at his younger son, the teenager instantly saw the storm behind his eyes. "It's good to see _both_ my sons looking so—well."

He took his place at the head of the table, elegantly laying out his napkin on his lap with a single wave of his wand. Regulus was acutely aware of some unspoken tension between the other two men—but he could not also help but notice on his father's end, at least—it extended to _him_ as well.

When Walburga came back to the table, Kreacher at her heels with a platter-full of magnificent stuffed lobster tails in his wiry arms, she still had the crumpled parchment in her hands.

Now that her concern at the reason for his absence had dissipated, Mrs. Black's irritation at her husband had returned with full-force.

"Would you like me to pour you a glass of wine—?" Walburga leaned over the table and pretended to sniff the air. "Or have you had enough for the night? You smell like a distillery."

Regulus and Sirius exchanged look of identical surprise—Orion rarely drank to excess, but now that it had been pointed out, they could hardly fail to notice the heavy smell of liquor that had begun to punctuate the room on his arrival.

Mr. Black returned her sarcastic look with one of long-suffering patience.

"You _know_ how he is. I couldn't refuse him when he offered." Walburga snorted—Orion gestured to the letter still crushed in her hand. "You will eventually read that, I take it?"

She sat back down in her chair and smoothed her skirts with unnecessary aggression.

"I don't see what that old fool could _possibly_ want from me," Walburga said, jerking her wand at the elf that he should serve them the food. At once the lobster vanished from the tureen and reappeared on the family's plates, and three of the four Blacks picked up their utensils. Only Sirius seemed uninterested in the delicacy before him. He was still staring intently at his father, who, predictably, ignored him.

"A visit," Orion told his wife, voice dry, as he began to cut his food. "You're overdue one. And now he's had his claws in me and gotten the idea in his head, he won't take 'no' for an answer—"

"—Well, he'll have to! I have quite enough on my hands as it is!" She tossed her head and turned to her sons. "Your father kept us waiting for half-an-hour because he was too busy carousing with Horace Slughorn to be _on time_."

"You were up in Scotland today?"

Orion looked up from the delicate forkful of crustacean an six inches from his face. Sirius had his eyes fixed on his father's.

"Did I not make it abundantly clear—" Mr. Black slipped the fork into his mouth and chewed carefully. "—That at _meals_ you are not to _speak_ unless _spoken to_ by your mother or me?"

Sirius didn't reply.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Yes— _what_?"

Sirius glared.

"Yes, _sir_ ," he said, through gritted teeth. "I heard you—loud and clear."

"Then I wonder at you not answering me," Mr. Black said, in a bland voice. "You _do_ realize that you are also to answer _promptly_ when asked a direct question, I trust?"

"I—understand completely, _Father._ "

He could not resist infusing the patronymic with sarcasm. Orion gave him a withering look.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, blandly, dabbing politely at his mouth before meeting his quietly seething son's gaze again. His eyes were hard as flint, two polished diamonds. "As far as my whereabouts go—whether I travel to Scotland, Wales or _Timbuktu_ , unless I tell you otherwise, it is nothing whatsoever to you, and you and your brother would do well to put it out of your heads. Is that understood?"

Regulus started—he had been watching the exchange with growing unease, and at the mention of his name—and Orion shifting his eyes in _his_ direction, the teenager flinched.

"Of course, sir." Sirius snatched the silverware off the table and stabbed his lobster tail moodily. "It's already forgotten."

The family ate the rest of the starter in silence. Regulus felt the unspoken tension between his father and brother only grow—it hung in the air between them, in every look, every exchange, and he could not help himself from watching it, fascinated. He looked to his mother to see if she had picked up on it, but Walburga seemed to not notice anything particular about the rancor between her husband and firstborn—they were already at loggerheads so often, nothing seemed all that unusual—though her eyes did seem a bit more hawkishly trained on the pair of them than usual.

"On the subject of today—" Mrs. Black said, as Kreacher was clearing away the plates and bringing out the soup course. "—Just before you got in, Sirius was telling his brother and I how he spent the whole day _shopping_. Can you imagine such a thing?"

Orion looked around at the taller of the two boys—currently caught someplace between sullen glare and panicked attempt to catch his father's eye and head off disaster.

"It boggles the mind," Mr. Black said, dryly. "He never seemed to enjoy you dragging him about on your excursions as a child. I wonder what could have prompted it."

As he had already had enough humiliation for a lifetime in the past day, Sirius could not take the ignominy of his parents talking about him as if he were an idiot child, incapable of explaining himself. Sirius opened his mouth—then after a sharp and vindictive look from his father, shut it again. He contented himself by silently swearing like a sailor and imagining sticking pins in an Orion-shaped doll.

Walburga sprinkled some pepper on her pea soup, utterly unconcerned with her fuming child.

"Personally," she remarked, in a light tone of voice. " _I'm_ more curious to know what kind of shopping he thought he would do in the drawing room of our _home_."

There was an awkward silence where all the men at the table froze. Mrs. Black alone continued eating her soup, with the feminine and graceful manners she had employed since she was a child. Her husband's flushed face lost its color—but when he recovered himself, he instantly turned on his son. Sirius already had his palms raised in the air.

"For the record, _I_ didn't tell her _anything._ "

"Hold your tongue, boy," Orion hissed, furiously. "Unless you'd like me _remove_ it for you—"

"—What _I_ would like to know, Orion Black," Walburga cut in, icily. "Is if your son lied to me about coming to Grimmauld Place this morning when I was out for his _own_ sake…or because his _father_ instructed him to."

Orion set his spoon down on the table in front of him resolutely. Regulus, meanwhile, was mouthing silent questions to Sirius—whose only response was nod furiously and kick him under the table.

"I didn't tell him to lie about anything," Mr. Black said, carefully. "And certainly not to _you_."

Sirius let out a whoop of disbelieving laughter—what, did the old man think he was going to willingly take the fall for this?

 _To hell with that._

"That's rich! You may not have said it to me directly, but it was _heavily_ implied. Why _else_ would you have told me to come when you knew she'd be out?" Sirius snorted, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion at his mother. "How did you even know I was _there_?"

Mrs. Black gave him a scornful look.

"I am your _mother_ —and you leave your _mark_ wherever you go, Sirius Orion." She turned back to her husband, ignoring the yelp of protest that came from the red-faced stripling sitting next to her—she had bigger fish to fry than him. "Honestly, Orion—I don't know where you get these notions. What if someone had to come to call when he was there? I cannot see what on earth was so important that you had to summon him like that—particularly without consulting _me_ , first."

Mr. Black resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He knew full well that the real source of her anger was not that Sirius had come by the house—it was that _he_ , the supposed patriarch, had not managed to corral their eldest son into his old room and lock the door.

He sighed.

"Well—since I am left with no other _choice_ —" He shot Sirius a scathing look. "I will tell you. Of course, I _had_ hoped to surprise you—"

"Surprise me with _what_?" Walburga snapped, impatiently.

Orion picked his spoon and returned ladled himself some of the pale green soup. Both his sons watched him—Sirius with anticipation, Regulus fear—to see if he could manage the impossible feat of escaping this encounter unscathed.

"I decided—in preparation for his reinstatement—that it was time to begin instructing him in the duties and responsibilities that are part and parcel to the office of head of the family, and so I called him to the house to begin his…education." He glanced up from the bowl to see her reaction—now his wife was the one on the back-foot. "Frankly, I thought you'd be more pleased."

Mrs. Black blinked at her husband, who had gone from suspiciously defensive to placidly calm in a matter of moments.

"Is—is that _true_ , Sirius Orion?" Walburga asked, perplexed, turning to the boy (whose face had drained of all color). "Is that what you were doing at the house?"

"Go on, boy—tell her." Orion raised a single eyebrow tauntingly. "Didn't I give you some family papers to look over and errands to run for me?"

It took all of Sirius's self control not the hurl the spoon.

"I—" The cold, hard look of warning Mr. Black threw his son across the table stifled the string of profanities he would have so dearly loved to utter. "— _Yes_ , you did."

He practically had to force the words out of his mouth.

"So then—the shopping you were doing this afternoon—" Walburga glanced back at her husband, as if she was not quite sure that this could be what he meant, and she needed him to standby for clarification. "That was for your _father_?"

Sirius let out a long sigh and slumped back in his chair.

"… _Yes,_ " he muttered, tapping his spoon against the edge of the plate. "It was."

Walburga stared at him for a long, hard moment—her eldest was the worst liar by far of the family, and his reaction to this line of inquiry had all the telltale signs of willful petulance that signaled her headstrong eldest was annoyed and embarrassed at his father showing a bit of paternal backbone.

As well he should. Mrs. Black smiled and visibly relaxed.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" She shook her head, exasperation obvious. "This _does_ explain your behavior today."

" _What_ behavior?" Orion asked, a hint of warning in his voice.

"The elf said he's been shut up in his room all afternoon, sulking—Regulus had to convince him to eat lunch." She surveyed Sirius critically—this explanation was clearly not to his liking, if his churlish expression was anything to go by. " _Now_ I see the cause—he was in a _mood_ because you gave him chores to do."

"I was _not_ in a—"

"—It's very sensible of you to start right away on him, Orion," Mrs. Black cut off her son, approvingly. "Though I still think you ought to have told me. I'd have had the elf lay out lunch for the two of you."

Orion gave her a wry look.

"I'll be sure to always inform you of your progeny's movements in future," he remarked, dryly—but Walburga had already turned back to her son—and she had never had a good ear to hear her husband's irony, anyway—particularly when the explanation that had been presented to her satisfied her sense of how things _should_ be. "I plan to keep a _very close eye_ on him."

She would believe what she wanted to believe—in that respect she was a very easy woman to lie to, and Sirius could only glare at her husband, the undisputed master of the delicate half-truth, and fantasize about how utterly livid she would be when she realized what an absolute corker she'd been fed.

As this was a _fantasy_ , the fact that he was complicit in said lie was something he could ignore.

"Don't look like that, Sirius Black!" Walburga scolded him, severely. "It is perfectly natural and right that you should do errands for your father. Frankly, all this running about with no responsibility that you've grown accustomed to is what's unusual. You need structure and order."

"What I _need_ is a Colt .45," Sirius muttered, under his breath—but not quietly enough.

"What in Merlin's name are you talking about?" His mother asked, turning to her husband for help. Orion shrugged, unconcerned. "What is _that_?"

"Nothing."

"It's a sort of gun," Regulus supplied, quietly. "They're—a kind of weapon Muggles use."

The other three Blacks stared at him in surprise.

"How do _you_ know that?"

Regulus's eyes flitted guiltily to the blank-screened boxy object in the corner of the room, than back at his mother.

"One—picks these things up."

Mrs. Black chose to interpret that as 'rubbish his elder brother had fed him', as she usually did on the rare occasion that Regulus spoke of forbidden knowledge.

"And what exactly does this— _thing_ —do?" she asked, her voice deeply suspicious.

Regulus quickly explained, as he understood it, the basic functions of a handgun. By the end of his terse explication (picked up from a half-hour television western he had managed to sneak in while Sirius was in their room and Kreacher in the kitchen), his parents looked equally horrified—though this seemed to have less to do with the gun itself than the fact that their younger son knew about this crude Muggle artifact in the first place.

"How barbaric!" Walburga's eyes flashed at Sirius. "What on earth do you mean speaking of such a thing at our table? And what _possible_ use could you have for one?"

One glance at his father was enough to disabuse Sirius of the notion that explaining his murder-suicide joke to his mother was a good idea.

"Nothing—no reason." He stirred his tepid soup and sighed. "I'm sorry for bringing it up."

They passed the rest of the soup course in near silence—the only sounds being the occasional murmur from one of the parents on the quality of the food.

Regulus gave his elder brother a pitying look across the table as Kreacher served the main course—a rather magnificent rack of lamb with roasted turnips and potatoes surrounding it on a silver tray a foot long. The unpleasantness of the argument between his brother and parents—and the palpable tension between Sirius and Orion, which had reached a toxicity level even Walburga couldn't have missed—had reached such a noxious level, that Regulus felt he ought to help clear the air.

"How was grandfather's birthday party?"

The second the words left Regulus's mouth he knew they were a mistake. A thunderously angry cloud passed over Orion's face, and Sirius—who he had expected to be happy that he had changed the subject to something as innocent as a family function—kicked him so hard under the table he jumped, and on the heels of this began shaking his head from side-to-side as furiously as was possible without drawing the attention of Walburga.

Only Mrs. Black failed to notice—she was neatly cutting a roasted carrot in half. When the woman looked up, there was a vague trace of annoyance on her face at the question, but it was not anything beyond the usual.

"Oh, much the same as it always is," Mrs. Black said, vaguely. "You know how these things go."

"It was a _tedious affair_ ," Mr. Black cut in, coldly, as he aggressively sawed straight through his lamb bone. His eyes flashed as they turned on his elder son—who abruptly froze in place and went pale. "An interminable evening."

His wife let out a feminine noise of disbelief.

"You certainly stayed late at that 'tedious affair'," Walburga remarked, dryly, taking a bite from her turnip. "I didn't even hear you come in."

"I didn't get back until two," Orion said, gloomily. "My father kept losing hands and _insisting_ we play another round."

Mrs. Black wrinkled her nose, biting back the waspish remark she would have liked to make about her father-in-law.

"Of _course_ he did." She spotted the confusion on her younger son's face—and mistook the grimace on the older's for the same emotion. "Your father got wrangled into playing cards last night, of all things."

Sirius kicked him under the table again. This time Regulus ignored it.

"You were playing cards at grandfather's birthday? But…" Regulus frowned—very aware that there was something odd about the story. "That's not like him. He doesn't _usually_ gamble."

"Well, that was Abraxas Malfoy's doing— _he's_ a great gambler, always has been—" Walburga nibbled her lamb. "—so when the festivities moved to his house, he convinced your grandfather it would be a grand idea for him to spend half his birthday betting the family fortune."

Regulus dropped his knife and fork on his plate with an unholy clatter.

"The party was at _Malfoy Manor_?"

He quickly turned towards his brother—Sirius had abandoned kicking in favor making short, violent slashing motions at chest level and jerking his head to his left surreptitiously. Regulus's eyes darted from his elder brother to the direction he was gesturing to, and met his father's icy gaze. His face lost all color at the expression he found there.

"It was a last minute change," Orion said, coldly. "Lucius and his father _kindly_ hosted us."

Regulus's eyes were wide as saucers—he looked between his father and brother a couple times, now full-blown horrified.

"So then—" Sirius shook his head and mouthed 'shut up' at Regulus. "But was it _him_ who—" He nodded, furiously, once again jerking his head in the general direction of the head of the table. Orion cleared his throat loudly just as Regulus blanched.

"You seem to want to communicate some _critical information_ to your younger brother, Sirius," Orion said, his voice heavily sarcastic. "Would you care to share it with the _rest_ of us?"

Sirius dropped his hand on the table and turned his head slowly, meeting his father's gaze, evenly.

"There's nothing to share," Sirius replied, glibly raising one eyebrow to his father, by way of challenge. "I'll just speak to him after dinner— _sir_."

Orion's lip curled.

Walburga could hardly ignore her entire family having a silent conversation of which she had no part, and so she abandoned her own lamb and cleared her throat, drawing the attention of all three men back to her.

"The two of you should not be whispering to each other at the table, _honestly_ ," she chided. "I thought we raised you with better manners."

Regulus, biting his lip nervously, broke eye contact with his father and turned to her, eyes full of apology.

"Was—was everyone in the family there?" he said, in barely more than a squeak. "At the—party?"

"Oh, most everyone—apart from you." She toyed with her fork, idly. "They all asked after you, Regulus—you were quite missed."

"Your cousins' husbands had a _message_ for you, Regulus."

Regulus froze like a deer. Sirius, who had been mutilating a turnip on his plate, looked up from the monstrosity he'd created.

"Did they, s-sir?" Regulus's voice faltered. Though he'd seen that had expression on his father's face dozens of times, Orion had _never_ looked at _him_ like that before. "What—what was it?"

Mr. Black said nothing for a long moment.

"Oh, nothing all that interesting." He wiped his mouth gently with the corner of his napkin. "Lucius and Rodolphus were just…very disappointed not to see you, and—I think there was something about hoping you'll be back in London for some party on the twenty-third."

He continued to stare at his son. Regulus blushed crimson, but—to his credit he held the older man's gaze, refusing even to blink.

"I'll be sure to write them both notes in the morning with my regrets, sir."

Abruptly, Orion's temper flared up again.

"I think you've spent _quite enough_ time writing letters," he snapped, tossing his knife on the plate with an uncharacteristic lack of manners. "You'd be better occupied helping your brother go through that correspondence I gave him than copying out any more of your _own_."

Regulus flinched and looked across the table, reflexively—only to find Sirius scrutinizing him in much the same way. The brothers exchanged looks of misery.

Mrs. Black noticed the downcast pall over her two boys—the root cause of which was clearly their irascible father, who had decided for Merlin knew what reason to spend this dinner snapping at everyone on the slightest pretext.

"I think he has time to do _both_ ," Walburga interjected, frowning. "And if Lucius invited him, it would be rude not to respond."

Orion shrugged and tersely resumed tearing into the lamb chop with a vindictive energy his wife failed to grasp the source of. Perhaps it was something his father had said to him—or Slughorn. She found it hard to imagine him stewing on what _they_ had argued about—she had long since stopped thinking Orion was much interested in her opinions or wishes when they conflicted with his own.

Whatever was the cause of his sour mood, it wasn't worth dragging the mood of his wife and children down with him.

"I did think of something amusing that happened at the party," Walburga remarked, a few minutes later, at another interminable lull in the conversation. "This will make you laugh, boys."

Neither one of her sons had _ever_ heard her utter that phrase—and as she was a woman basically devoid of a sense of humor, neither had ever laughed at a comment of hers—at least not any that were _intended_ to provoke such a reaction.

"Your father caught himself a prowler in the house."

Sirius lowered the forkful of lamb he was forcing himself to eat for lack of anything else to do with his hands—save reaching for his wand and apparating from the table to the far reaches of the Outer Hebrides.

"What—what do you mean, Mother?" Regulus asked her, nervously glancing between Orion and Sirius, who again both looked semi-murderous—but now they were avoiding looking each other in the eye at all costs. "Was there someone who…shouldn't…"

He trailed off, awkwardly.

"Oh—it's nothing like that!" Walburga waved her hand, airily. "It was a _dog,_ of all things. Some stray that got into the house. I caught your father _conversing_ with it."

Regulus gave his father a sideways look—but when he tried to catch Sirius's eye, he found his brother staring resolutely at the china plate in front of him. His forehead was scrunched up—a sure sign he was trying, with some difficulty, to control his emotions—and it was turning beet red.

"I was doing no such thing," Orion said, tersely. "I was _leashing_ the pest, so I could remove it."

Walburga snorted—arguing the point with her husband meant that she had as of yet not noticed that her eldest son was struggling to keep his famous gunpowder temper in check—and failing.

"You were talking to it! I was looking for you, and I heard shouting through the wall—and I open the door and it's only you and that _animal_."

Regulus's mouth fell open.

"It was…a particular difficult mongrel to corral. I can't imagine how it managed to sneak its way into the house," he said, eyes crackling with barely-suppressed anger as they flicked to the spot where his older son sat. "Eventually I had to _muzzle_ it and drag it out by force."

Regulus stared between his brother and father—a horrible second wave of realization washed over him, and he began to quietly mouth questions in his brother's direction. Sirius was gripping the edge of his silver knife so hard Reggie thought he might snap it in half.

"I still don't think it was a stray." She looked over at her boys and addressed them, with the confidence of an expert. "Mark my words, that creature had breeding."

"Your mother is convinced the animal in question bore some passing resemblance to the famed 'Black hounds' your great-grandfather bred—one of the _family_ , as it were. Personally—" Orion twirled his fork in his fingers, expression thoughtful. "—I cannot imagine anything so mangy or dull-witted coming from the Black family. Of course…I _could_ be wrong."

Sirius stabbed his fork into a stray potato with so much force it nearly cracked the dish.

"I suppose one or two might've gotten loose and left a few descendants roaming about the countryside. But I believe Cygnus kept his _whelps_ penned in the backyard," Orion remarked, dryly—still staring squarely at his elder son, trembling with anger. "I think we could all learn a lesson on managing _wayward creatures_ from him."

Sirius roughly pushed out his chair and stood up.

"I'm not feeling well." His eyes glittered in his pale face, fixed in a hard look of intense anger solely channelled in Orion's direction. "I want to go to bed. Can I go, _sir_?"

Sirius didn't bother waiting for his father's answer before he gave a significant look to his younger brother and nodded toward the door. Regulus, caught his eye, and in a rare moment of boldness, also stood up.

"I'm—I'm also not feeling—" He was stammering badly, something he always did when he was anxious. "I think I need to rest—may I please—be excused, Father?"

Orion looked from Sirius to Regulus, grim resolve in his lined face. In the dim and flickering light of the candle on the table, his cheeks appeared more sunken than usual.

Mr. Black wasn't smiling.

"You both look perfectly healthy to me," he said, coldly, before turning to his wife. "Let's ask your mother for _her_ opinion. What do you think, Walburga?"

Walburga had been watching the exchange with curiosity and—seeing the non-verbal communication between her sons, concern. Her desire for her sons to get along was at war with a long-felt worry in the back of her mind—that if they grew too close, her tried and true strategy for managing them—i.e. keeping them pitted against one another—would lose all effectiveness.

They clearly wanted to get away from the table because they were in each other's confidences about something—she would file that thought away to examine it later.

Mrs. Black stood up and placed one hand on each of her boys' cheeks.

"Neither of them feel warm—"

"Well, there we have it—" Orion said, sleekly. "As you don't appear to be keeling over, you'll stay and finish your dinner with your mother and I. _Now sit back down,_ both of you."

Regulus fell back into his chair, brown eyes set in a look of helpless anxiety.

Sirius didn't move. He looked to his mother—but he could see at once that she was not going to interfere. She had always wanted her husband to take the reigns in discipline, and now that his father had discovered his inner-taskmaster, she was not about to take them back.

Orion's lip twisted in an ironic smile.

"I told you to _sit_ …boy."

Fuming silently, Sirius sank back down in the chair. He locked eyes with his brother across the table. The look of incredulous understanding—coupled with a disapproval that lay somewhere between indignant and amazed—suggested to the elder of the two Black children that full meaning of the embarrassing double- _entendre_ had not been lost on Regulus.

He kicked Reg under the table again and silently mouthed the word 'later' to him.

"If either of us are sick at the table," Sirius said, turning to address his mother. "You know who to thank."

Walburga was not impressed.

"Nonsense. You'll do nothing of the kind—it wouldn't be toward. And anyway, everyone in our family has very strong constitutions, isn't that so, Orion?"

She nodded to her husband, the wish for affirmation inherent in her look. He stared at her queerly for a moment before answering.

"Very—robust."

His voice was uncharacteristically subdued, though Regulus appeared to be the only one at the table who picked up on it—he looked up from the china plate where the Black family crest was just visible under a sauce and gave his father a penetrating stare.

Orion didn't even noticed he was being watched.

"I suppose," Mr. Black said, in the theatrically tired voice he had always put on when he was eager to move the conversation along. "That we have quite exhausted your sons' interest in the subject of last night's gathering, which is why they are so eager to leave the table."

Neither Sirius nor Regulus dared argue with him.

"I think their father is the one is tripping over himself to change the subject." She remarked, delicately cutting up a potato and spearing it on her fork. Though the main course had hardly been in front of them for very long, it was obvious nobody besides her was much interested in the food. " _And_ I think I know why he's in such a dreadful mood."

Mr. Black, long used to his wife's needling manner of ferreting the truth from the men in her family, refused to rise to the bait of asking her what she meant.

She set her knife and fork down and looked up at him, gaze straightforward—or as much as it ever was, with her.

"Did you lose _very_ badly at cards?" There was just the barest hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Will we have to sell the house?"

She waved her wand at the house elf, and he began to clear the plates and set out the salad course. Orion raised one eyebrow, elegantly.

"Oh, I don't think so." Mr. Black leaned a little back in his chair, expression thoughtful. Both of his sons were staring at him—Sirius with open and hungry curiosity, Regulus disquiet. "I may not have won the bank…but I wouldn't say I came away from the table _completely_ empty-handed."

Walburga's eye roll and tart remark about how she would check the family accounts later to get a substantial answer to this question prevented her from noticing the mocking smile her husband leveled at their older son. _He_ was fully aware of it, and when Sirius opened his mouth, only a well-aimed kick from Reggie prevented him from the imprudent rejoinder he would otherwise have made.

They watched Kreacher set out the salad that was meant to be a refreshing palate cleanser for the meal that none of them had enjoyed, much. The three men all eyed each other warily—the only ray of hope was a general lull in conversation between courses which suggested that the subject of last night's grand social engagement might have petered out altogether.

Walburga had different ideas, of course.

"By the way, Orion—" Mrs. Black cut into the blood orange that was the centerpiece of her fruit salad with gusto. "During that game, did you find out from Rodolphus where Bella was, by chance?"

Orion paused, fork raised midway between the plate and his mouth. Regulus knocked his goblet onto the tablecloth. Blood-red wine seeped over the linen, but he hardly noticed.

"Bellatrix wasn't there?" Reg asked his brother, urgently. "But where—"

Sirius let out a strategic cough and jerked his head significantly—Regulus turned red and stammered, realizing too late his mistake in addressing _him_ and not their parents. He turned towards his mother—avoided meeting Orion's steely eyes—and repeated the question.

"She wasn't. I thought it very odd. Especially considering Rodolphus _and_ Rabastan were, though the two of them did turn up dreadfully late, I never saw them come in—" Walburga again looked at her husband, who had set down his fork rather resolutely, and was wearing one of his customary closed-off expressions that gave the impression he was doing hard thinking. "I _thought_ he might've told you where she was."

Orion shrugged.

"I asked. He only said she wasn't ill. Nothing else."

Sirius grew very still, and his brother, recovering his color, busied himself with mopping up the wine stain with his napkin. Mr. Black's tone was just casually dismissive enough to stir his wife's tendency to harp.

"Well, I think that is very singular—a husband going to his wife's family's party, and bringing his brother instead!" she observed, to no one in particular. "And I don't know _what's_ gotten into Bella. I'll have to talk to Cygnus about her. That's the third event in a row she's missed—it's not like her to neglect her responsibilities to the family."

Sirius couldn't help himself—he stifled a laugh into his goblet. Rather than muffling the sound, all this attempt at dissembling did was cause him to spray it over his plate and draw the attention of his entire immediate family.

Orion cleared his throat loudly, and his son—still choking on the wine—regained control of himself. His mother goggled at him, while Kreacher gave him a disapproving look from the floor.

"And what, pray tell, is _so amusing_ , Sirius Orion Black?"

Sirius took a long time wiping his face, but when he removed the cloth napkin, he had managed to school his expression as well.

"Nothing, Mother." His lip twitched. "Nothing—at all."

He looked at the wall—the sarcastic smile still visible to her even in profile. Walburga narrowed her eyes. She couldn't let anyone have the last word in the best of times, and on the rare occasions when when one of her immediate family had dared laugh at her, she had not taken it lying down.

"No—you were sniggering at me, and I want to know the reason why." She rapped her wand against her palm, and a trail of sparks flew out the end. "What about me wondering why your cousin missed your grandfather's party could _possibly_ make you laugh?"

For a moment Sirius only stared at her—creeping incredulity that she would ask such a question, and then—he smirked.

"It's just, well—" He leaned back in his chair. It was not a kind expression that he wore, or even one of amusement. He was looking at his mother with a distinctly condescending superiority.

"—I think Bellatrix has _bigger_ priorities than 'the family' these days, Mother."

He let the legs of his chair fall back down on the floor with a clunk.

"What on _earth_ do you mean by that?" Walburga demanded, scowling at him in disapproval—whether it was for his indolent table manners or his cryptic remarks, none could say. "What could be more important for a young woman than her family? And moreover—what could _you_ possibly have to say about it?"

Baffled, she turned to her younger son and husband for support—and found each of them looking at Sirius with far more comprehension than she could own to.

Orion had his eyes trained on the boy—a look of warning. Regulus, pale and grave, had sunk so low in his chair that only the top his forehead was visible over the top of the table.

"I think that's something we would _all_ like to know," Mr. Black said, voice tight. "Why don't you explain to your mother what you mean?"

Sirius let out another little derisive laugh and tossed his head.

"I think she should ask Regulus—"

"—She asked _you_."

Father and son stared at each other for a long moment, locked in a silent battle of wills. Sirius broke eye contact first. The young man let out a long sigh, and turned his eyes around to his mother, still staring at him, expectantly—though there was a title flicker of anxiety in her eyes as well.

He shrugged his shoulders once more, affecting an air of nonchalantness.

"I just meant, well—Bella's been married for eight years. You can't expect her to go running back home to every family to-do because her father bids her." Sirius spoke in a clinical and dispassionate tone that suggested he was, on the whole, indifferent to the matter. He stabbed a tomato on his plate and held it up in the air, circumspectly. "I mean, she's not even really a Black anymore, is she?"

He tossed the fork back on his plate. Walburga stared at her son with a fresh look of understanding—as if she was only now coming to see where it was that she had gone wrong with him.

"Is _that_ what you think?" she asked, uncomprehendingly. "That because Bellatrix is married, she isn't part of the family?"

"Well, strictly speaking…she's not a _Black_ ," her son pointed out, archly. "She's a Lestrange, now—just like Narcissa's a Malfoy." He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the name Cissy had willingly relinquished 'Black' for. "I'll grant that it's a bit of a lateral move—"

"—Your cousins are still Blacks by blood and always will be." Walburga narrowed her eyes at him. "Where did you get this queer notion that Narcissa and Bellatrix's marriages have removed them from the family?"

"Well—their _sister's_ certainly did." Walburga's eyes flashed dangerously at the mention of her wayward niece and the unfortunate _misalliance_ that had scandalized the family nearly a decade before. Sirius took another swig from his goblet. "And for the record, Andromeda cared a hell of a lot more about your brother and his wife than Bellatrix _ever_ has."

Every night Mrs. Black had to fight her natural urge to rise to his bait—for as myopic as she could be, even Walburga was not blind to how poorly Sirius was taking to his coerced transition back into his rightful place in the family, and she was desperate to walk away from at least one meal with no hurt feelings or scars between them.

She swallowed the tart reply she had at the ready and merely clenched her jaw.

"The point is," the matriarch of the family said, in a voice of forced calm. "That family is about more than the _name_. It is something that is part of you no matter who you marry or where you go—or _with whom_ you associate. You will be a Black until the day you die."

On another day, or in another life, Sirius might've taken this moment to point out the rank and unfettered hypocrisy of such a declaration from a woman whose clan had removed people from the family tree for the sin of marrying or thinking incorrectly countless times. Today, however, he only looked at her, oddly calm.

"You know…your brother once said almost the exact same thing to me."

A deathly silence fell over the table. Walburga remained expressionless, though the light from the candles danced in her eyes. The other three all watched her in expectation—Orion with concern, Regulus anxiety—and Sirius with that reckless instability, the desire for a fight that was always roiling just beneath the surface.

His mother tossed her head let out an airy and demonstrably false laugh.

"Did he? Well, Cygnus has his moments of wisdom." She turned back to her salad with a feminine wave of the hand. "Few and far between though they are."

"I wasn't talking about Cygnus."

Walburga's shoulders tensed—the air around her seemed to actually freeze over, and when she looked up from her plate she no longer bore any pretense of not understanding him. Her expression became dangerously frosty as she surveyed her eldest son—still staring at her with that stubborn defiance which had always infuriated and impressed in equal measures.

"As he's the only brother I have," she said, coldly. "I can't _imagine_ who you mean."

She gave a silent look to her husband—permission for Orion to intervene if he so chose. Mr. Black had been watching this exchange of volleys like a game of squash, for he knew well how much her temper would flare up at any perceived need she had for help.

He cleared his throat. Sirius ignored him.

"I was talking about Alph—"

"—The real _material_ point," Mrs. Black interrupted him, voice louder, two angry splotches of color on each cheek. "Is that a _good_ marriage expands one's family."

Sirius burst into mirthless laughter again.

"Rodolphus and Lucius aren't a good addition to anything," Sirius sneered, contemptuously. "And they certainly aren't _my_ family."

His father gently set down his knife and fork.

"They are your married to your first cousins—so yes, by marriage, _they are_. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that your _feelings_ about _anything_ matter on this point." He spoke with the maddening patience of a schoolmaster with an unruly pupil who needed to be set down. " _Family_ is a definitional term. It is or isn't. Whether you like them or not is immaterial—"

"—You've already told me all this," Sirius interrupted him, quietly. "This _morning_ , if you recall."

Walburga pursed her lips. Orion considered his son seriously for a moment. Sirius remained unwavering in his look—though the boy's fingers trembled slightly, gripped around the salad fork in his left hand.

Mr. Black sighed.

"Some lessons bear repeating."

His son didn't argue, and his face was far from the usual expressive. His eyes looked quite blank, mouth set in an impenetrable thin and grim line.

"I don't know where all this criticizing of Bella comes from, Sirius Orion." Walburga observed, off-handedly, as she tapped her wand on the side of the plate, splitting a pomegranate into fourths. "When she always was such a _favorite_ of yours."

Her eldest son looked up from the lettuce he was mangling on his plate, open-mouthed.

"No, she wasn't." Regulus was trying to catch his eye, but he was so fixated on his mother that he didn't notice. "Andromeda was always the one I liked best."

Walburga raised an eyebrow—allowing the mention of her disgraced niece pass without comment.

"When you were older, perhaps—but when you were a little boy you _adored_ Bellatrix," Mrs. Black told, matter-of-factly. Sirius stirred fitfully in his chair. "People used to mistake you for brother and sister—no wonder, the way you followed her around. You were _quite_ devoted."

"That's not true—"

"—Of course, it's no surprise, really." Walburga plowed over him, immune to the fact that her son's face had gone chalk white at these observations. "Cut from the same cloth. She's very willful and headstrong, too." She turned to her husband, expression thoughtful. "Your sister's like that, also. It must be something about eldest children in our family—"

He banged both hands on the table so hard one of the candles toppled over.

"I am _nothing_ like Bellatrix, and I would thank you not to compare me to her!"

Sirius's brother and parents all stared at him. He realized, vaguely, that he was standing, having knocked his goblet onto the lion's share of his salad (now soaked through with wine), that his fists were clenched so hard that his knuckles were white, and that he was breathing so hard he might've just run up a mountain.

His father gaped at him. Orion was for once without criticism—his silver eyes were widened in surprise, and if Sirius hadn't known better, he would have thought he saw alarm there as well, for the vehement and imperious tone with which he had half-shouted those words at his mother was disturbing to more than one party at the table.

Walburga tilted her head in a superior fashion. Her catlike eyes narrowed.

"Do you know _how_ I knew you were in the house today?"

Sirius stared at her, and he unclenched his fist, curled around his wand. He dropped his arms weakly to his sides.

"No," he answered, honestly.

"The cushions from the sofa in the drawing room were all over the floor—had been kicked off, in fact."

Orion cursed softly under his breath at his eldest son's lack of discretion—but the boy ignored him in favor of Walburga.

Sirius sat back down in his chair, still transfixed by her, perturbed. His mother wore that maddeningly self-assured look he had never been able to stomach.

"So?" he asked, stupidly.

"So—that was something _Bellatrix_ used to do when she was a little girl." Sirius sucked in a hard breath. "You must've picked it up from her, you started doing it out of nowhere when you were about three or four. You used to sneak down into the drawing room when we had Druella and the girls for tea. And you always mimicked her in everything."

"That doesn't—that doesn't _prove_ anything!"

Walburga blinked at him. For once she seemed more surprised than offended.

"There's no need to get so _worked up_ about it," his mother told him, patiently. "I'm sure _you_ don't remember—but _I_ do."

"I am _not_ worked up." He tossed his salad fork into the inedible mess on his plate. "I just—don't happen to see it."

"See what?"

"A resemblance between me and Bellatrix, of course!"

She shook her head and tutted, maternally. He was clearly in a mood, and humoring him further would only get the boy more worked up.

"Well, I _am_ your mother, Sirius Orion." The ghost of a superior, arch smile slipped over her face. "I daresay _I_ can see you more clearly than you see yourself."

For once, Sirius had no sharp rejoinder—no pithy comeback. He glared at his mother, momentarily struck dumb—still looking angry, but as was so often the case in any sparring match between them, Sirius had been effectively blunted. She met his mulish glare with the haughty indifference of a queen surveying one of her subjects.

"At any rate—" She went back to delicately cutting up the scant greens on her plate. "You're _far_ too old to make such a mess in the drawing room—and it was quite imprudent of you. I walked into the room with your cousin, and when she set eyes on it I was certain _she_ had the same thought that I did."

Sirius let out a dismissive little snort under his breath.

"I doubt if Narcissa's powers of imagination really extend far enough to think I'd be invited back into that house, Mother." Orion exchanged a look of surprise with Regulus, which Sirius, absorbed with bickering with his mother, didn't notice. "And even on the off-chance Cissy _did_ think I'd been there, she'd do everything in her power not to spread it around, _believe_ me."

She waved her fork at him in a chastening manner.

"You should _not_ underestimate her, and anyway, who knows what she'll say to that friend of hers? They're becoming quite thick as thieves, I wouldn't put it past Cissy to confide _anything_ in her."

"What friend?" Orion dropped his serviette into his lap. "What are you talking about?"

His wife looked around at him, momentarily confused—then a flash of remembrance crossed her face.

"That's right—I hadn't gotten around to telling you all yet." She addressed the boys specifically. "Your cousin is staying with us for the week leading up to the Christmas party, and she's brought a friend—"

"— _What friend_ are you speaking of?" Mr. Black repeated, with more urgency—Walburga huffed with suppressed impatience at being interrupted a second time.

"That Battancourt girl, of course—who _else_ could it be?" Orion's face froze in the expression of one who is having their worst fears confirmed. Sitting diagonally across from him at the table, one of his sons was busying himself with pushing an orange pip across his plate with his knife and not looking in his father's direction.

" _She's_ staying at the house?" His eyes unconsciously darted to Sirius, who sensed the look even without raising his head to meet it and froze in the act of pushing the pip under a spinach leaf. "When exactly did _this_ all come about?"

Walburga clearly found her husband's demands for information tedious, for she turned to address the servant first.

"Kreacher—clear the salads away—and bring out the cheese and fruit, and _then_ the gâteau with the brandy." When her gray eyes raised from the floor and met her husband's, the look she found there was far less supplicating than her devoted elf's. He looked unaccountably irked, for what reason she could scarce imagine. "It's all been arranged. I thought you spoke to Lucius last night."

"He asked me if we could entertain his wife for the week," Mr. Black seethed. "He said _nothing_ about foisting some school-girl miss she's taken a shine to on us. Were they even going to _ask_?"

Walburga, affronted by the suggestion their niece had such poor manners, gave him a withering look.

"Narcissa did before the girl arrived at the Jarvey—she met us for lunch and came back with Cissy and I." At this news her husband groaned—but as she was used to heading off arguments about entertaining guests and anything else that might interfere with the solitude and silence he craved, Mrs. Black already had a line of defense at the ready. "It's better this way, Orion. She can amuse Narcissa, and they'll be out most nights with Lucius and his set—I think he's meeting them in London tomorrow. You'll won't even know they're there. It's good timing, really, when you think of it."

"This is _hardly_ good timing." His wife gave him one of her deliberately obtuse looks—one never knew if they were genuine or by design—and he set his mouth in a grim line. Regulus, meanwhile, had busied himself with feeding Kreacher a crust of bread under the table—but the reddening tips of his ears were just visible over the table cloth. "For reasons I _hardly_ feel I need to explain to you, Walburga, the timing could not possibly be _worse_."

She shrugged, carelessly.

"Well, we can't back out now. The girls' trunks will have arrived by now—I left them with a light supper. I'm sure they're settled in and playing whist or sewing or something like that." She vanished the remains of the food off her plate with a flick of her wand and quirked her eyebrow in Orion's direction. "I don't see why you're in such a flutter over it. What reason do you have to object to the girl?"

It was at that moment that Sirius chose to take a sip of wine that inopportunely went down the wrong windpipe. He coughed loudly, drawing the attention of everyone else at the table—most especially his father.

Mr. Black stared at his son for a long moment, then back at his wife. He looked as though he would have dearly loved to remark on how the presence of a companion for their niece in the house would make it easier for her to sneak off to visit her fugitive children, but he decided to restrain himself.

"It's not _her_ I object to, precisely," he said, in an opaque tone. "It's—but I suppose it's done and can't be helped."

They each helped themselves to generous portions of cheese and sliced fruit—Sirius only because he knew that if he did not, Walburga would make a point of demanding the reason he did not sample a bit of every one of the fifteen dishes she put out for her meals, as if he was deliberately insulting her from abstaining from even one of them.

"Is it— _Colette_ Battancourt who is staying at the house, Mother?"

They all stared at Regulus, the most unlikely person to break any silence.

"How do _you_ know her?" Orion asked, genuinely perplexed. His more timid son, in direct contrast to his overbearing brother, was rendered momentarily mute from the question, couched in slightly aggrieved tones.

"I met her at a party last summer at—at Danden Hall."

Sirius cleared his throat and adopted a cherubically innocent expression that didn't fool his father or brother for an instant.

"So, erm—this girl you're all talking about—" he said, in a just-too casual voice. " _Who_ exactly is she?"

His father instantly saw red.

"It is _none of your business_ who she is," he snapped, coldly. "And if I have to tell you not to speak unless you've been spoken to _one more time_ , boy—"

"—Oh, for goodness' sake, Orion!" Walburga cut him off, exasperated, dropping her knife onto the table with a clatter. "He was only asking a question out of _curiosity_! If you intend to _grouse_ at him every time he tries to contribute we'll never have a moment's peace at dinner, _honestly_."

His jaw tightened, but he said nothing in reply. Both his children knew that after arguing in public and any altercation with Arcturus, her cutting him down in front of them was the thing he hated most in the world.

She drew herself up, and ignoring the silent anger radiating off her husband, turned towards Sirius. He flashed a small smile of polite gratitude at her—and was also careful to ignore his father. That left Regulus as the only witness to Orion quietly seething at the pair of them.

"She's a witch from Normandy who is a friend of your cousin's—the great-niece of Eugenie Fawley—and she's visiting from the Continent for Christmas." Mrs. Black patted her mouth daintily with her napkin. "She's been staying with the Malfoys for the past view days, but the girls decided to come up to London for a change of scene."

"But _why_?" Sirius asked, bluntly skipping over any clarifying questions about how his older cousin should have become friends with such an unlikely person. "I mean—what reason could she possibly have to come here now—to this country? England's hardly what I'd call a jolly holiday spot."

His mother frowned, unable—or more likely, unwilling—to see his point.

"Well, her grandmother _was_ a Fawley—Eulalie—before she married into the Battancourts she was a friend of your grandmother Melania's, actually—" The furrow in Sirius's brow became more pronounced. "—So I suppose she has people here, distant cousins and the like. Though…" Walburga tossed her head, dismissively. " _I'd_ guess they sent her over with some idea of making an eligible English match for her."

"What makes you think that?" Sirius asked, slyly. "She, er—an old maid, is she?"

"Oh, no—she couldn't be any older than Regulus—it's just that Narcissa keeps hinting at it, and after an afternoon spent with the girl, I wouldn't be surprised if her parents thought she was in danger of becoming one."

"She's very nice," Regulus interjected, quietly. Sirius grinned across the table at his brother—but Walburga, who could count the number of times her youngest had contradicted her on one hand, didn't seem to even register the comment was meant to be rebuke—however gentle—of hers.

"She's not totally hopeless—she could be doing better with what she's got, naturally, if she were _my daughter_ I'd have taught her how to fix her hair—but I _am_ surprised they sent her over here when she's so fresh. The family's very old and well established in France, and she's so young—you'd think they'd want her in Paris for the season—but then—" She paused just long enough to give the effect of having come to an idea out of nowhere. "—Maybe there's no money, and everyone in France knows it."

"It's well known that the Battancourts are land rich and cash poor," Mr. Black informed them all—he may have had no interest in personal gossip, but he was an excellent source of knowledge on every magical family in Europe. "Acres of estate and no gold to keep it up."

"Didn't they say she was an only child?" Orion shrugged—he was still focused on Sirius, who was absorbing all this new information with far keener interest than his father would have liked. "You'd _think_ she'd be an heiress."

"Narcissa told me that there's some trouble with her father's estate," Regulus piped up, again. "She can't inherit because she's a girl."

Sirius gave his brother a thoughtful sideways look and guffawed.

"What, just because she's a bird she gets cut out?" Sirius slouched in his chair. "Well, that's typically medieval. She must be a pureblood, like us."

His father glared at him, and he sat up straight again.

"Since you know nothing of the particulars of the Battancourt family's financial arrangements," he remarked, dryly. "Perhaps you ought to keep your opinions on the subject to yourself."

His son leered at him and rolled a grape across his plate.

"She's a very odd girl." Walburga spread some fig jam on a cracker. "Bookish. She was late because she dawdled at Flourish and Blotts of all places." Mrs. Black rolled her eyes. "In _my day_ girls never owned to reading novels. It wasn't done."

"Cissy says she…writes things."

O- _ho_. Sirius rounded on his brother, interest piqued.

"Really? What _sorts_ of things?" he pressed. Regulus, like his mother, was visibly surprised at the interest Sirius showed, but like her was too pleased to question his brother's motives in asking—in spite of Orion's apparent hostility in the face of Sirius keeping this line of questioning open.

"She didn't say, exactly—I think sort of…sketches of people she meets. Narcissa caught her doodling one on a serviette and asked her about it."

Sirius laughed.

"Maybe she thinks Narcissa would be a good villainess in a ghost story. I can't imagine any other reason a budding novelist would want to hang around with Ciss."

His father loudly cleared his throat.

"This sudden interest in your cousin's social set is quite the _startling_ development." Orion made no effort to veil the withering sarcasm in his voice. "In the past you always were _so unequivocal_ in your distaste for all her friends. What could have changed, for you, I wonder?"

His eyes glinted dangerously at his elder son—who nibbled a piece of camembert, the corner of his mouth turned up.

"Well—if you had your way they'd be my social set, too, wouldn't they? So I figured I'd better start doing my research ahead of my big—uh, debut in society." Sirius took a generous helping from the bottle of brandy—and poured some for his father as well. He pushed the unwanted glass in Orion's direction. "And you know, Father—with age does come changes in perspective. Maybe if I were to meet this Colette Battancourt I'd even _like_ her."

Orion looked at the glass for a moment—from his expression, you might've thought Sirius had poured poison in it—and he pushed the goblet away from himself again, unsmiling.

"You might." He offered Sirius a thin smile. "It's a shame you'll have no opportunity."

Sirius inelegantly untangled himself from the chair around which he had indolently draped the arm holding his brandy glass. Across from him at the table, Regulus observed the exchange over his wine glass, his brown eyes wide with concern.

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, voice sullen.

"Because, _my boy_ —" he father replied, serenely plucking the glass of brandy up off the table and savoring its scent. "This Christmas you'll be far too busy learning about your responsibilities and duties to this family to keep society with anyone not in this room." His eyes narrowed. "Not that in Ms. Battancourt's case, you'd have much cause to cross her path—assuming you're _behaving_ yourself, of course."

Orion's voice thrummed with repressed anger—so much so that Walburga, supervising the distribution of the grotesquely elaborate black and white chocolate gâteaus—one of the many fancy sweets she had been trying to soften Sirius with the past week—glanced up from the task to watch the sparring men.

Sirius gritted his teeth.

"There's always the new year."

"Yes, there is." Sirius blanched—for there was no mistaking the finality and steel in his father's voice. Orion's lined features were set with fresh determination—the resolve that, for all his age and weariness, his son had never seen there before. "And in _this_ family, I think I can safely say there's more than one _new leaf_ that will be turned over come January."

The promise—or threat, depending on the perspective of the listener—hung in the air around the table. Whatever happened, they all knew that the détente of the last three years was at an end. Sirius fixed him with a stubborn, irascible stare that was so like his mother even _she_ recognized it—but just then Kreacher placed the chocolate confection in front of him, and the young wizard had an excuse to look away from his father's sharp eyes boring into his skull and still claim he was not defeated.

It was a beautifully made dessert—just as exquisite as everything Walburga ever put on her table. It almost looked too pretty to eat.

"Well?" Sirius looked up from the cake—only to find his mother watching him with anticipation. "Aren't you going to try it?"

"I'm not hungry."

Walburga leaned across the table and pushed the plate towards him, entreatingly. She had that typically bull-headed look on her face that said as far as _dessert_ was concerned, it was not up for debate.

"Nonsense. There's marzipan in the filling—that's your favorite."

He sighed and glanced up at Regulus. His brother pointed to his plate and gave him a pleading look.

"Yeah—alright." He tapped his spoon on the plate. "I'll have a—little."

Sirius took a hearty bite of the confection—and immediately let out a cry of involuntary delight at the taste. When he looked back at Walburga, mouth full of chocolate and almond paste and the spongecake fingers that lined the bowl, he was alarmed by the look of satisfied pleasure he found there.

Far more disconcerting than pissing off Orion was the thought of _pleasing_ her.

"Well?" his mother asked. He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.

"Scrumptious," Sirius muttered, reluctantly. It was—and he could not see a way of getting around the truth. She had it made with the express purpose of appealing to his tastes, after all—and try as he might to deny it, she knew them well.

He took another bite, attempting to ignore the shameless triumph on his mother's face. So it was good cake. There was no harm in good cake, even if she _had_ made it especially for him. He was not a child anymore, and sweets were not enough to get him back under her thumb, if that's what she thought she was doing.

That being said—he took another large bite, savoring the rich almond paste— _was there amaretto in it? Damn, it was good!_ —Sirius was definitely going to finish this.

After all—the night was young, and he would need his strength.

* * *

Colette felt only slightly guilty at having told Narcissa—who had wanted to write a note to her husband, letting Lucius know they had safely arrived—that she would be perfectly happy to entertain herself for a little while, as she wished to explore the house out of an acute interest in its architecture and great family history. Her lack of guilt at this fib sprang from the fact that she _would_ have wanted to do so even if a mysterious stranger _hadn't_ tipped her off to the existence of a hidden staircase that lead to the kitchen and fireplace through which she intended to sneak out to meet him.

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was not like any house she had ever been in before.

Oh, she had been to grand places—the main town house of the Battancourts in Paris was even larger than this house, and certainly more opulent—but her father's family favored large French windows that let in plenty of light, crystalline ceilings and doors, mirrors with frames of gold in the Rococo style, and everything, of course, always _très français._

Battancourt houses had none of the dark corners and Victorian gloom of _this_ place, the velvet curtains that hid the light and made the shadows long—they had no scope for _mystery_.

She felt, without knowing precisely _why_ , that this house had held many a secret in its long history.

As she climbed the creaky steps to the third-floor landing, Colette shivered with delicious excitement. Perhaps the hidden staircase was concealed behind a panel, or there was a secret trigger to open it, like in her favorite gothic mystery _The Jeweled Scepter of du Maurier—_ the book her late Battancourt grandfather had given her for her twelfth birthday on the sly, and which she had read by wand-light a dozen times under the covers of her bed at night.

She was so lost in thoughts of gothic mystery—and reminiscences of a childhood spent stealthily navigating getting around the strict rules that dictated every aspect of a young witch's life and education—that it took her a moment to realize she had reached the top of the house and the very ordinary landing with two very ordinary doors—no hidden passages in sight.

 _If I didn't have to look for it, though, it wouldn't be much of a secret, now, would it?_ she thought, reasonably. Putting aside her love of the fantastic, at her heart Colette was a practical and sensible young woman.

It must be through one of the doors. The witch's eyes fell on the one closest to her, which had a small handwritten sign next to it.

 _Do Not Enter_

 _Without the Express Permission Of_

 _Regulus Arcturus Black_

She smiled, remembering the timid boy she'd met the summer before. Colette imagined him painstakingly copying out this warning to potential intruders. Narcissa's cousin must've had more nerve in him than outward appearance suggested, to have _dared_ put up such a sign for his parents—unless this warning was meant for someone besides them. She doubted the house elf was the one who sneaked into his bed chamber, for when he'd served them tea and gotten their supper ready, Kreacher had been almost as enthusiastic as Narcissa in his praise of 'young Master Regulus'.

Colette's gaze shifted to the other door, and upon reading the single embossed word on the metal plate, she gasped.

 _Sirius_

Of _course_. When she had asked what was on the floor above where her room was situated, Narcissa had told her Regulus slept up there, but it only made sense that—

She traced a finger over the dusty monogrammed copper plate—Colette supposed she shouldn't be surprised that Mrs. Malfoy had neglected to mention that there had once been a _second_ occupant of this floor, but staring at the tarnish on the letters, she felt an unaccountable pang of melancholy. The girl was overcome with a nearly irresistible—and completely irrational—desire to pull out her rowan wand and perform a scourging spell on it, to polish away the years of neglect.

Reluctantly, she dragged her eyes away from the nameplate on the elder son's room. Ms. Battancourt glanced around the landing, curiously. It was completely empty except for the two bedroom doors and the staircase that lead back down to her room. If there _really was_ a hidden passage to the kitchen, it followed that it truly would have to be hidden behind one of the two doors.

She looked between them, weighing her options—and then, predictably, seized the handle of the elder son's bedroom.

To Colette's immense surprise—and excitement—it turned.

The door creaked only a little as she pushed it. The room was pitch dark—an unlit chandelier, just visible from the dim light of the gas lamps in the hallway, hung from the ceiling, as did the aging gas lamp she could just make out was next to the door. Colette pulled out her wand and, fumbling a little nervously, glancing over her shoulder (she was not going to lose her nerve now, not when she was _so_ close!) murmured a spell to light both.

When her eyes adjusted to the new brightness, a riot of red and gold assaulted them. There were banners draped all over the room—along with so many pictures and clippings that she could not make out the color of the wallpaper. Colette took a step into the room to get a closer look and blushed bright scarlet when she realized what was pinned up on the south wall.

A collage of Muggle girls dressed it barely more than their under garments. The young Frenchwoman, her face still burning—her second-cousin Antoinette would laugh and call her a little prude, as she had last spring at their Easter party, when _Antonie_ had described what she'd done with her brother's best friend in Sardinia and Colette had nearly fainted—averted her eyes from the lewd pictures to a collection of no less perplexing images nearby.

It was a two-wheeled Muggle contraption she had seen a few times in the streets of Rouen and Paris. There were dozens of pictures of them, more even (Colette thought, ruefully) than the girls.

So…the teenaged Sirius Black had liked, even been fascinated by Muggle things—and, more extraordinarily, had not been afraid to show it. Colette wondered at his nerve (it certainly put his brother's sign to shame) to tack these pictures up on the wall of his mother and father's house…she could not imagine being daring enough to even be caught reading a Muggle magazine (though she'd been tempted enough to buy them, on the rare occasions she'd been in proximity to one of the stands in town.)

Colette tore her eyes away from the pictures on the wall to look at the bed—it was then she noticed something odd.

When she had first walked into the bedchamber, Colette had been struck by the unmistakeable smell that marked a long undisturbed room—dust and rot and a musty odor one couldn't quite place. But looking at the bed, she realized.

 _The bed's been turned—recently. And the covers are fresh._

The witch still had her wand gripped in her right hand—she lit it and, not knowing quite the reason why, held it down to the floor. Half an inch of dust covered the walnut lacquer. Colette saw the evidence of her own light footsteps, visible—and _a second set_ that she at first had not noticed, leading straight to the pristinely made bed.

Someone else had been here— _recently_.

She lifted her wand up from the floor and to the wall opposite—and it was then she noticed that amidst the red and gold bunting, and banners (she noticed they all featured a magnificent lion) there was a single moving wizard photograph—she could tell it was four wizards, in black robes, but she couldn't quite make out the faces because one of the four-posters was in the way. She skirted around the end of the bed, a queer churning in her stomach, when—

"Colette—what are you _doing_ up here?"

At the sound of Narcissa's voice at the so startled her that she dropped her wand on the floor.

She fell to the floor and scrambled to retrieve her wand, all the while gibbering nonsensically.

"I was just—well, when you said I could look around, _je suis désolé…_ I—you know—I really didn't mean to…"

She found her rowan wand and snatched it up from the dusty corner it had rolled to, then turned around and gave her friend a sheepishly apologetic look—but saw at once that Narcissa was hardly paying attention to the string of apologies. Silhouetted in the doorway, Mrs. Malfoy's face remained hidden in the shadows—leaving her friend to guess what she was thinking at having discovered her companion nosing around in a private bedchamber.

"But—how did you—" Narcissa, normally composed, actually stammered. "—How did you even get _into_ this room?"

"The door was open," Colette answered, in a small voice. "So I just…you know, pushed it…"

She bit her lip, anticipating the excoriation she surely deserved for having gone where she had no business going—but it never came. Instead Narcissa only shook her head and sighed. Her heels clicked against the dusty floor as she walked a few paces inside.

"Honestly—if you were going to choose a _bedchamber_ to sneak into," Narcissa remarked, giving her a familiar sisterly look of fond exasperation. "I don't know why you picked this instead of Regulus's. At least there there's something worth seeing in there—for _you_ , anyway."

Narcissa stepped out the shadows, and at the sight of her knowing smirk, Colette felt the color rise in her cheeks. Cissy's eyebrows arched with amusement—she was always happy to know she had landed a hit.

"You're lucky my aunt and uncle aren't here," she continued, more seriously. Colette nodded in agreement, and Narcissa turned back towards the door. "I doubt anyone's been in this room in years—as long as we shut it up again, neither of them are likely to ever know you were poking around where you shouldn't be."

Colette swallowed, glancing back at the freshly made bed. Narcissa had gone back to perusing the walls, clicking her heels delicately on the floor as she traced a graceful oval-shaped circuit of the room.

When her eyes traced the faded emblem of a lion stuck in a prominent position next to the bedside table, her lip curled up, and she turned back to Colette.

"You _know_ who used to live in here, of course."

Colette said nothing, but the nervous and guilty expression on her face must've given her away., Narcissa sank down into the bed.

"Please, Colette—I'm not a fool, and nor are you. I'm sure you've heard _all_ about him." Narcissa leaned back on her palms and stared up at the canopy of the four poster bed. For a moment her eyes remained fixed on a point above her head. " _Everyone_ has. It was such a scandal at the time…even now, it's _such_ an embarrassment—to even think of _him_."

"Think of who?"

Narcissa turned her head sharply towards her friend—her patience had worn thin.

"You saw the nameplate on the door," Mrs. Malfoy said, a tad colder than she had been up until now. "The blood-traitor—Regulus's elder brother, the one who ran off—this was _his_ room." She waved one elegant hand towards the walls. "I haven't been in here for years—I cannot _believe_ my uncle let him put _that_ rubbish—" She sneered in the general direction of the wall of Muggle magazine pictures. "—On the walls. I'm sure he only did it to vex my aunt. It's so wretched, don't you think?"

The blonde laughed and looked to the younger witch, expecting the same pleasing, gentle agreement that had first charmed her so when they'd met—and instead found Colette looking far more quizzical than she'd ever seen her.

"What was he like?"

Narcissa stared at the younger girl impassively for a long moment—a mild suspicion at the girl's curiosity (and a clannish tendency to protect Black family secrets that four years of marriage to a Malfoy had not yet stamped out) butting up against her natural love of gossip and the desire to be an influence on the young and impressionable potential protégée she saw in Ms. Battancourt.

"What—you mean the Black sheep?" Colette nodded, quickly—before she lost her nerve. "Why do you want to know about _Sirius_?"

At the mention of the forbidden name, Narcissa's voice lowered to a hush. Colette shivered.

"Well—I mean, I've only heard a little—someone at the party mentioned why he'd been disowned, and I—"

"—Someone at the party was talking about my—about _him_?" Narcissa interrupted her, sharply. "Who?"

Colette froze—but only for a moment. A day into playing this game, and she was adapting to the rigors of white lies.

"I didn't—catch his name." Which was true—though it was hardly the whole truth, but she could pass it off well enough in the moment. Even Svensson's imposter would be impressed. She continued, quickly— "Not anyone in your family, I think he said he was a friend—but he mentioned that your—your cousin had some very _strange_ ideas that might've lead to, well—you know."

Narcissa laughed, a sharp tinkle, like the sound of a glass bell breaking.

"' _Strange ideas_ ' is one of putting it," the older girl said, standing up again. "All it takes is one look around this room to get the measure of _him_."

Ms. Battancourt waited on baited breath—for she had come to notice that whenever Narcissa Malfoy left an idea floating out in the ether, it only took the slightest pause in conversation for her to pick up the thread again and finish it, quite on her own.

"He was a complete disaster, naturally!" Narcissa said, indignantly, when no echo from Colette appeared to be forthcoming. "And a great disappointment to my poor aunt and uncle."

Narcissa's voice, so brittle, had gone soft at the mention of Orion and Walburga Black—and their shame at the great scandal that had so rocked the world of their family only a few years earlier.

"All Aunt Eugenie told me was that he—" Colette gulped. "—Abrogated his responsibilities."

A shadow passed over Mrs. Malfoy's face.

"That's partly the case—but it wasn't the _least_ of it." She sighed again. "Everybody had _such_ high hopes. I mean—" Narcissa corrected herself. "Granted, he _was_ always terribly spoiled—Papa says my aunt and uncle indulged him too much when he was a boy, but really, it was everyone in the family. He _was_ ' _the_ heir'—the first Black boy born in _our_ generation, and of course, Uncle Orion's father is head of the family. The young wizards among our sort get treated very differently from the witches— _you_ know how it is, _they_ get special privileges, even in the nursery."

Colette faked a smile—she did, as it happened. She knew all too well. Narcissa was on a tear, now, though—and she continued, glorying in the rare freedom she had to speak candidly about a subject that must always be a guarded, hushed topic with everyone else in her family.

"He terrorized the governesses. What an unremitting scapegrace—always sneaking out of the house, and dropping frogs and doxies into our pillows when we came to visit—Regulus is the total opposite, so well behaved and charming, always has been, and his elder brother used to get the two of them into _terrible_ scrapes, because he bullied poor Reggie into misbehaving. I remember once they got in trouble because Sirius convinced him to try to climb up the floo—he and Regulus were so covered in soot they looked like chimney sweeps when they got out. Our grandmother Irma nearly had a fit!"

Colette's mouth twitched up reflexively. Narcissa, when she wanted to, could paint quite the picture—but this image of a rambunctious and high-spirited little prince hardly matched with what the imposter had told her about the mysterious wayward Black son.

Which of them was right, she wondered?

"Still—" Narcissa trailed off, thoughtfully, and she rested her hand on the poster of the bed. "—He was, in his own _odious_ way, clever and had _some_ magical talent." She sniffed, contemptuously—this admission was clearly made only under the greatest duress. "I suppose that's why his parents and our grandparents put up with it—they thought once he was in school he'd grow less wild. He might've turned out alright in the end—if not for _that_."

The mother-to-be gestured to the red-and-gold lion tacked up next to the bed. Colette looked at the emblem, then back at Narcissa, more confused than ever. What did a school mascot have to do with her infamous cousin being cut off from the family?

"I don't understand."

"He was sorted into _Gryffindor,_ dear. _"_

Narcissa uttered the unfamiliar word with as much scorn as she could possibly infuse into what seemed like a nonsense spell to Colette. When her young companion continued to show no sign of gleaning the meaning of her words, Mrs. Malfoy's face twisted in an expression that could only be described as scandalized.

"But—didn't your auntie explain the _houses_ to you?"

Colette shook her head—after a quick exclamation at how unprepared she was to go out (and how lucky it was that Narcissa had discovered this gross oversight before they went to one of the many social functions she hoped they'd attend together this season) she quickly laid out a truncated explanation of the four Hogwarts houses. It was brief—according to Narcissa, Slytherin was the house that everyone in her family—save her disgraced cousin—had been sorted into, and was not coincidentally _also_ the only one worth being in.

"But of course, he _had_ to be different—" She rolled her eyes. "It was such a to-do when he was sorted into Gryffindor, imagine—the heir, consorting with the filth they let in there! It turned him completely against the family. He fell in with the worst crowd imaginable, and they filled his head up with the _basest_ notions. Broke his poor mother's heart."

Colette's ears perked up at this—here, at least, her newfound informant and Narcissa's stories matched perfectly.

"Do you—know any of his friends?" she asked, remembering how freely the stranger had spoken of her, and suddenly wondering if he might not be one of the common people Narcissa was alluding to. She had a doubt about it—for impertinent though he had been, there had been nothing 'common' about the young wizard she had rammed into in Diagon Alley—far from him. "I mean, are you acquainted with any of them very well?"

She looked revolted at the very thought.

"Me? Merlin, no! I wouldn't be caught dead with scum like _that._ "

Colette's face colored again, and she felt her insides shrink—both from having offended Narcissa and at the thought of what she would say if she knew that Colette might very well be meeting one of the people 'like that' this very evening.

"Bella always says that if he'd have been sorted in Slytherin, he would have been just fine. _She_ thinks it was a waste." Narcissa wrinkled her nose. "Personally, I say good riddance. Sirius would have been a dreadful head of the family—Regulus actually cares about family pride, and upholding our traditions. He'll do marvelously, I'm sure."

"Was his brother _very_ upset, when he ran away from home?"

Narcissa hesitated, unsure how candid she should be—lest the truth affect her friend's good opinion of the cousin she hoped to match her with.

"Of—course not." Colette just kept her steady gaze, which Narcissa, for all her hauteur, found more unnerving than not, and after a long moment, she conceded, annoyed, "Well—I mean, perhaps Reggie was a _little_ cut-up, but he and Sirius hadn't gotten along in years." Narcissa looked distant again. "He'd been expecting it, I'm sure. The only people _truly_ shocked were his parents. They say _they're_ always the last to know when someone's…strayed from our ways."

Narcissa rose from the bed, back straight. She had the look of finality that Colette recognized meant it would be unwise for her to ask any more questions on this score. Of course, Narcissa's story had only intrigued her more, but she bit her tongue.

"They could be back any time," Narcissa told her, cooly. She was fiddling with her collar, determinedly not looking at anything but Colette's face. "We should get out this room. We'd get in so much trouble if anyone knew we'd…"

As she was ushered out of the bedroom, Ms. Battancourt glanced back at the far side of the room, wistful—disappointed that she had not managed to get a closer look at the one wizarding photograph on the wall.

"Why did you come up here, anyway?" Narcissa asked, when they'd returned to the landing.

"I was just…looking for anything interesting."

"Well, there's nothing of interest up here—except Reggie's room, of course—but we'd better not go in there tonight." Narcissa smiled. "Well—I guess that's not entirely true—there is the secret door."

Colette's blood froze.

"The…the secret door?"

Narcissa rolled her eyes, good-naturedly—at least, by her standards.

"Regulus told me about it," she said, pulling out her wand and tapping the floor. The edges of a hinge creaked slightly—and Colette spotted it the dark paneling had entirely concealed it. "It's a trap door, here—in the floor, that leads to the kitchen. I think the Muggles who built this house had their servants use it."

"Muggles once lived in this house?"

It was Mrs. Malfoy's turn to look abashed.

"Well—a very long time ago," she admitted, stiffly. "We—a Black ancestor, I mean—cleared them out in short order."

Colette's eyes widened. She thought of the house-elf heads that were mounted on the wall, the odd liquids that Narcissa had been so cagey about explaining in the cabinets of the drawing room. She was starting to get a clearer picture of the Black family—and the more she learned, the more she wondered if there might not _be_ something to the stranger's description of the famed house. Naive though she might be, Colette had a gift for observation, and even her most charitable read of her new friend's family could not blind her to that ruthless streak, that they all, to greater or lesser degree, seemed to possess.

"The…the other one found it, and they used to use it to sneak into the kitchen at night." Narcissa frowned, indicating in no uncertain terms that she had never been part of one of these escapades, and had only gotten this intelligence second-hand—and what's more, was embarrassed to admit even that.

There was an awkward moment of indecision, both girls waiting for the other to move.

"You won't—I mean, you will be discreet—" Narcissa hesitated, her eyes lingering on the copper plaque. "…About _that,_ won't you? Aunt Walburga would be so angry if she knew—"

"—Of course I will," Colette solemnly crossed her heart with her left hand. At the gesture Narcissa smiled—all the curiosity the Battancourt miss had shown was a little unseemly, but the girl appeared to have recovered the slightly artless school-girl affect that had first charmed her. "I wouldn't—betray your confidences."

Narcissa's look of gratitude quickly turned to scolding.

"Of course, you shouldn't really have been asking about it, in the first place."

Colette, who'd been staring at the trap door, lost in thought, looked up from it, surprised at the sudden chilly reproach emanating from Narcissa.

"I _am_ sorry!" she said, in a defensive tone. "It's just that—one grows very curious about these things."

"Curiosity is dangerous for a woman—you ought to guard yourself against it. Men don't find it pleasing, anyway." Mrs. Malfoy put her hand in the crook of Ms. Battancourt's arm. "I make it a habit to ask my husband as few questions as possible—it works marvelously for fostering marital bliss."

The light in the hallway was dim enough that the younger girl could easily hide the automatic frown this advice had solicited. However hard she tried, she could not see herself following it—she was categorically incapable of not asking questions. Narcissa didn't notice that her friend was troubled by her heartfelt and utterly sincere advice about the dangers of inquisitiveness in the marriage market.

"Come on. Let's go look at those gowns you bought today—pick one out for the concert tomorrow." Narcissa began to gently steer her down the stairs. "I'm sorry it's been such a dull evening, if I'd known they'd be out tonight, I'd have made plans for us."

Colette studiously avoided her gaze, and her eyes fell on the back of Narcissa's head. She had redone her hair in an elegantly braided knot, and used some tricky spell to weave a festive red ribbon into it. Cissy was an endless source of these domestic charms that Colette could not, for the life of her, get the knack of.

"That's very pretty—what you've done to your hair, Narcissa," she said, in the soft tones of one steeling themselves up to ask an embarrassing question. "Can you—can you show me how to do it like that?"

Narcissa rested one delicate hand on her stomach and beamed. This was her area of expertise—good of the girl to see she needed practice is this area.

"Would you like me to fix it like this for you?"

Colette smiled and nodded in ascent, glad to have pleased her friend with the suggestion—and made it a point not to think of that slightly mocking look on the imposter's face when he had been looking at her hair last night.

* * *

 **Happy Thanksgiving (belatedly) to all my American readers. Thank you for your thoughtful comments—I hope you enjoy this update (I swear we will finally FINALLY catch up with the prologue next chapter). Expect an update schedule of once every three weeks (give or take), or so, going forward. I am not so far ahead with writing anymore, sadly. Real life has slowed me down a bit, and editing this to keep it at the quality I'm satisfied with is very time consuming.**


	10. Chapter 10

_"_ _It's ideal for headquarters, of course," Sirius said. "My father put every security measure known to Wizard-kind on it when he lived here. It's Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call—as if they'd have wanted to…"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

 **CHAPTER 10**

"When you said you got _caught_ last night, you could've _mentioned_ it was _by Father_!"

"Keep your _effing_ voice down, Reg—I'm trying to concentrate, here." Sirius pressed his ear against the door to the kitchen. Their parents had disappeared through it thirty seconds earlier, after a customary stilted goodbye and an ominous promise from their father that he would return forthwith because he wished to "speak to his sons for a few minutes alone." No sooner had Orion and Walburga left had he crossed the room and begun placing every security spell he knew on the door, as if that _could_ prevent them from ever coming back through it again. He _was_ a man of action—and anyway, it gave him an excuse not to look at Regulus, in all likelihood going into quietly hyperventilating at the empty dinner table.

But there was no sound of witch or elf on the other side—their parents must already have made it back to Grimmauld Place and taken their servant with them.

He leaned heavily against the door and slid down onto the floor, sighing wearily.

"That should buy us a couple minutes." He chanced a look at his younger brother, who had gotten up from the walnut table and was stalking towards him. Regulus had his hands on his hips and was wearing an expression of displeasure that reminded Sirius of Kreacher—it very difficult for him to resist the urge to point out the resemblance. "Until he blasts it open, that is—"

"—Were you even going to tell _me_?" Regulus demanded, glowering down.

He forced himself to meet the brown eyes of his younger brother. From this angle he looked quite formidable.

"I would've…eventually…" Sirius felt a stab of unwanted guilt at the hurt that was mixed into Regulus's glare. "Look, it wasn't exactly my—finest hour—"

Regulus let out a laugh of hysteria.

"No, I bet it—it _fucking_ wasn't!" Sirius's lip twitched, involuntarily—but his amusement at Regulus having to work himself up into a state to swear was short-lived. "How the _hell_ did this happen, Sirius?"

"It's not like I _wanted_ it to!" Sirius snapped, defensively. "I didn't even want to _be_ there. I buggered off from this family three years ago for a reason—being dropped into a room with the entire clan was not my idea of a _smashing good time_." He pushed his palms against the floor and got to his feet, staring eye-to-eye with his younger brother. "I tried to bail as soon as I realized, but Frank had different ideas—and it was too late by then, anyway." His expression darkened. " _Our father_ had already spotted me."

Regulus's hands dropped to his sides, all anger forgotten in the face of the horror of the mere idea.

"It's like he can could me from across the room, Reg." Sirius, always a natural storyteller, gesticulated with feeling. "I swear—as soon as he looked at me, I just _knew_. I knew in the pit of the stomach, no matter how many wankers were in that room, _he_ was going to be the one to find me out." He turned back to the grained paneling of the kitchen door and traced his finger on it, glowering. "And sure enough—he _did_."

"How?"

The word—said in the awed, hushed tones of one discussing some terrible and catastrophic event—came out as no more than a strangled whisper.

Sirius stuck his hands in the pockets of his robes and turned around.

"Simple: they knew we were coming."

The color drained from Regulus's face.

"That's—that's not possible."

Sirius shrugged.

"Yeah, it is. It happened—hell, _our father_ told me himself, this morning. He got it from Arcturus, who got it from the Malfoys." He leaned his elbow against the doorframe, oblivious to the flash of shock that had flitted across his brother's face at this news. "I've half a mind to speak to Dumbledore. I've been thinking about it—and the only explanation I can come up with is that his informant tipped them off."

"That is _not possible_ , Sirius," Regulus repeated, voice expressionless. "You—must've told someone. Or Longbottom did—or someone followed you—"

"How stupid do you think I am?" Sirius asked, rounding on him impatiently. His brother laughed harshly.

"You got caught by Father, so—pretty damn stupid, actually."

Sirius rolled his eyes and leaned back against the door.

"Can you believe that load he fed Mum tonight about going to see Slughorn? I can't believe she bought it. If he was up there to see _anyone_ , it was Dumbledore."

"You—you think so?" He nodded—Regulus swore under his breath, then looked up at his brother, suddenly angry. "Merlin, Sirius, I can't _believe_ you. Do you know the trouble you've caused?"

Sirius frowned, annoyed at the lack of sympathy he was getting from this quarter. He'd been expecting Regulus, at least, to be understanding—him being angry on top of everyone else was so annoying.

"What does it matter to you? It's _me_ he's mad at." Sirius gave his younger brother a curious look. "Unless you've done something to piss him off I don't know about—he didn't seem too pleased with you at dinner, either."

Regulus shook his head, slowly.

"Of— _course_ I haven't."

Sirius laughed, unpleasantly.

"Yeah—he's probably angry at you for not ratting me out. Well, at _least_ we're off the hook for Christmas Eve. Arcturus is making them host everyone, so Chinese is back on for us." Sirius's smile turned grim. "You know the real reason he's so pissed at me—it's because I overheard Mother chewing him out over it." He laughed at the memory, savoring it—one of the few moments from the previous day he could enjoy in retrospect. "You should have heard her, Reg, she went total harpy, I thought she was going to bite off his head—of _course_ he just stood there and _took_ it—"

"—What a _balm_ it must be for the two of you, to have one another to confide in," a cold voice from the front doorway rang out. "Let it never be said that the spirit of _brotherly affection_ is not alive and well in this family."

Both of Orion's sons froze.

Sirius was the first to move, looking around at the still—barricaded kitchen door and then at the front door, also locked tight—though their father was standing in front of it, looking supremely displeased.

 _Not that he ever looks anything else._

"How did you get in here?"

"Magic," Orion remarked, dryly, flicking an non-existent fleck of dust off his cloak. "The anti-apparition spells on this unfortunate flat do not apply to anyone already inside it. When Dumbledore set them in place, he must've thought it would be useful." Mr. Black's eyes flashed, unpleasantly. "I've certainly found it so."

"You can't just sneak up on people like that—"

"—I believe you were in the middle of telling Regulus a _fascinating_ story," he interrupted, as briskly businesslike as he was deeply sarcastic. "Please, continue. I would hate to be accused of _interrupting._ "

"What did I tell you?" Sirius made a big point of turning toward his still-frozen brother. He clapped Regulus on the shoulder and laughed. "Quite a tiff they were in—clearly they haven't kissed and made up."

He turned around on his father, and in a moment of recklessness that bordered on the suicidal, asked, in a loud voice, "Tell me, has your wife let you back in the bedroom, yet?"

Orion had crossed the length of the room in seconds. Sirius, shocked, reflexively pressed his back on the door.

"You should take care what you say, my boy," Orion said, in a deadly soft voice—face very close to his son's. "If you don't want to be _muzzled_ again, that is."

Sirius's breath caught in his throat. He tried to swallow—but his mouth had grown very dry. Regulus was now hidden from view—all he could see was his father, looking almost as dangerous as he'd been in old Abraxas's study.

One day he would learn to resist the urge to needle and keep his stupid mouth shut—but not today.

"Robbed of speech—what a blessing!" Mr. Black leaned forward, relishing the fear in his son's eyes—fear that had been elicited without him even needing to pull out his wand. "Listen well—if I _ever_ hear of you discussing what you overheard last night with _anyone_ , I will put that _muzzle and lead_ back on you and won't take them off for a week, _do you understand me_?"

His son gulped and nodded, letting out an infinitesimal sound in the back of his throat not unlike a whimper. Mr. Black took a step back and surveyed the pair of them. Sirius's brother was staring at him with a mixture of horror and abject terror.

 _Good_ , their father thought, savagely. _Better late than never._

"Now, Regulus—" The younger brother stiffened at being addressed directly by his father. Orion surveyed him with a look that could only be understood as softened in relative terms. "I can only assume from the _vacant expression_ you're wearing—" Regulus's cheeks colored. "—That you were not aware prior to this evening your brother regularly moonlights as a _dog_."

"N-no—no, sir."

"That's just as well. It would be unfortunate if you _had_ known about this and kept it from me." He turned his narrowed eyes to the elder. "How lucky you are to have an elder brother so eager to exhibit idiotic behavior and its consequences to you. You can never say you don't know firsthand the extent to which crossing your father is _unwise_."

An ominous silence followed this observation. Regulus chanced a look at Sirius, who had recovered from the shock and fear of having the threat of muzzling thrown at him, and was now glowering at Mr. Black with abject loathing.

"So it's—true, then?" Regulus said, softly, to his brother. Sirius nodded—though his eyes were still fixed on his father in disgruntled anger. "How long have you been an Animagus?"

Sirius straightened up, the burning sting of humiliation still evident in his face and downcast pallor.

"Since fifth year," he shrugged, trying to play it off as if this was a minor detail of little interest. "It was a lark—piece of cake, really."

Regulus, for his part, wasn't fooled by this cavalier dismissal of the effort and considerable skill this illegal venture would have taken. He did some hard, fast thinking, and his eyes snapped with understanding.

"Wait, is _that_ why you and Potter were always sneaking out of—"

"—Shut _up_ , Reg." He trod on his brother's foot, forcefully. "And mind your own business, for once!"

Orion did not remark on the exchange—though his keen gaze made clear note of it, for later, no doubt.

"I want to speak to you both." He pulled out his wand in Sirius's direction. His eldest flinched, but the only thing that happened was that the kitchen door swung open. "Separately. You—" He gave his eldest a dismissive look and jerked his hand in the direction of the kitchen. "Go wait in the bedroom until I've called you."

As anyone who knew him could've predicted, Sirius didn't move.

"What do you want to talk to _him,_ for?"

His eyes rested on his little brother, standing behind Orion and shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously.

"If I wanted you to know, I wouldn't be ordering you into the next room, would I?" Orion asked, voice sardonic. Sirius made a 'tch' sound, and his father grabbed him by the arm and pushed him halfway out the door. "Oh, don't you worry—you'll have your chance soon enough."

He gave his brother a searching look—Regulus shook his head and mouthed 'just go', and he blinked and sighed. Their father was fast losing patience at both of them.

" _Don't_ make me tell you again, boy."

Sirius slipped out of his grasp and took a step through the door, before turning around. He opened his mouth to make one last argument—then saw the look on Orion's face and slammed it shut again.

"Alright, alright—" He put up both hands in a 'don't curse me, I'm unarmed!' gesture. "But I'll be right next door, Reg, if you need me."

"I'm sure your brother appreciates those warm sentiments," Orion replied, sleekly. "Though I can't imagine what use _you'd_ be to him or anyone. Unless you think he's in need of a guard dog."

Throwing the pair of them one last hostile look, he walked into the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind him. Orion waved a wand and resealed it, murmuring a spell to secure the key hole from any prying ears that might already be pressed against it, hoping to eavesdrop.

He had half a mind to send a curse straight through it.

Orion turned back around. Regulus had already sat back down at the dining room table—in anticipation of the order he had not even needed to make.

Mr. Black stalked back over to the table and took the spot across from Regulus—Sirius's seat. He studied his son, carefully. He had been expecting something like the fearful and timid little boy who, at the first sign his father was upset, had always cracked with a full and tearful confession of all wrongs committed.

The blank-faced teenager staring up at him bore no resemblance whatever to the picture in his mind.

He sank down into the chair. Regulus immediately sat up straighter. A single tallow candle remained lit, giving the teenaged boy—for that was all Orion could think of when he looked at him, in spite of what he knew—a ghostly glow.

He was very pale.

"He really didn't tell you anything?"

"About what?"

"Do not play stupid," Orion snapped. "It suits _you_ even less than it does your brother. You know _precisely_ what I am referring to, Regulus."

The ten-year-old Regulus would have crumbled at just his raised voice and utterly capitulated— _this_ opaque young man merely nodded.

"No—he didn't tell me anything about _that._ " Regulus's mouth twisted, and he continued, bitterly, "He _never_ likes to tell me what he's up to."

"In _that_ respect you're two of a kind," his father shot back, archly.

Regulus froze—but only for a moment.

"I don't know what you mean, sir," the teenager replied, in a calm voice. Orion had the faint and maddening realization that his younger son was playing this game rather like his father would've, if faced with the same situation.

He let the comment go with a mere eyebrow raised.

"You mentioned something about what he was 'up to' at school," Mr. Black continued, evenly. "Were there rumors about this floating around?"

"No—not this _specifically_." Regulus fiddled with a wine cork on the table. "Everyone knew he and Potter were getting away with something big, but no one knew what." He sighed. "Not even _I_ imagined he was becoming an Animagus."

"And do you have any idea why he would embark upon such a venture?" Orion pressed, delicately. "In addition to being dangerous and illegal, I am told it is quite a tedious process and involves very precise potioneering. His audacious _bragging_ aside, I find it difficult to imagine he didn't have a particular reason for becoming one."

"He probably just did it to show off for Potter."

 _That_ sullen and resentful tone Orion _did_ recognize as coming from his younger son. He steepled his fingers on the table and watched him, thoughtfully, for a long moment. Regulus fidgeted only a little, especially compared to Sirius—he had always been far better at sitting still, and once he'd gotten out of babyhood and over his childish tendency towards easy tears, he'd become far better at controlling his emotions, as well.

For a very long time he had seen Regulus's self-possession as a great blessing, a reflection of the qualities that made a good Black son. Now he found, paradoxically, that he would rather by far have the boy yelling and carrying on like his elder brother than acting the part of the sphinx.

Regulus hardly blinked. Mr. Black cleared his throat—using the sound to cover how unsettling he found that look on the face of his child.

"I don't want to discuss your brother— _or_ his friends," Orion said, voice a quiet drawl. "I didn't bring you in here alone to talk about either."

Regulus looked up from the carpet where his eyes had wandered.

"Then why—" He cut off his own question—a habit born from a childhood of hearing his elder brother admonished for asking far too many of his own.

Orion's eyes hardened as he watched his son from across the table. Regulus didn't move, didn't try to speak again—and though his features, so like his brother—so like _all_ of them—bore the proud traces of the family, Mr. Black could no more have guessed what his son was thinking than he could've a stranger.

"Do you have anything you wish to tell me, Regulus?"

There was just enough leashed anger hiding below the surface of Mr. Black's words to warn Regulus of the danger, there. His expression became—Orion had not thought this possible—even more unreadable.

"No, sir."

Orion felt a stab of unexpected displeasure in his gut—it was so smooth, so guilelessly done.

"Really—is that so?" He pushed his chair out forcefully and got to his feet. Standing above Regulus gave him an all too illusory feeling of being in control. Regulus did not slouch down, or cower—merely continued to stare up at his father, utterly unashamed. "There is _nothing_ you wish to confess? Not a single _solitary_ action weighs on your conscience?"

"Nothing."

Orion let out a hard laugh and leaned against the table. Regulus didn't flinch.

"I do not tolerate falsehoods— _not_ from my sons." He began pacing up and down the front of the table. He looked back around at his son—and his temper flared up again, to see that damned apologetic, hangdog look Regulus always wore when he was sorry for something he had nothing to do with. Orion laughed, without humor. "I suppose you think there's no punishment I can conceive of that's worse than being stuck in this flat, but believe me, my boy—twenty years with your brother has made me more than a little creative when it comes to _discipline_."

Regulus continued to watch him, attentively—and silently.

"And in _my_ day," he added, silkily. "Liars got the _strap_."

Regulus's lip trembled—but that was the only outward sign he was bothered by Orion's words. Otherwise he was holding his ground admirably.

"I didn't lie—"

"—You _intended_ to," Orion interrupted him, coldly. "If I had not caught Sirius red-handed last night, and known where he was—you'd have baldly lied to my face like you did your mother. Don't play the innocent with me—" Regulus stared back down at the table, flustered at the accusation. "—You have been telling fibs to get him out of trouble since you were in the nursery. Neither of you are children anymore—it is high time you stopped acting as though you were."

Regulus's face reddened with the childlike petulance that signified they were back on the uneven ground they should be.

"You will _not_ cover for him again," Orion informed his son, bluntly. "If your brother so much as leaves this flat to go to the corner _tobacconist_ , I want to know about it. I am your father and you owe your loyalty to _me_ , not to him."

Regulus flinched—but he didn't dare argue.

"Yes, sir."

"And—" Orion paused, expression darkening. "No _letters_ will leave this flat without me inspecting them first."

The boy went pale again—but he nodded, slowly. The candlelight, still flickering off his dark eyes, gave the effect that they were swimming with tears.

Orion knew better.

There was the sound of scuffling against the kitchen door. Scowling, Orion turned on his heel and marched over to it. He made a slashing motion with his wand and the door flew open.

"Is this your idea of _waiting in the bedroom_?"

The young wizard crouched in the doorway, eyes at the level of the doorknob, looked up at his father, a sarcastic smile plastered over his face.

Orion jerked a thumb at him—and then turned around and drew a line between Regulus (still seated) and the door.

"I'm done with _you_ , for the present." Regulus scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over the hem of his robes in his haste to get away from his father as quickly as possible. "Go to your bedchamber. We'll join you there momentarily. _You_ —" Orion turned back towards Sirius, who by now had gotten up off the floor and was wiping the dust from his robes, not a trace shame on his face at being caught eavesdropping. "—In. _Now_."

The two brothers crossed paths on their respective journeys. Regulus, pale and by now sweating rather profusely, didn't meet Sirius's probing gaze when he pushed past him and through the door to the kitchen.

Sirius slowly sat down in Regulus's recently vacated seat. His father secured the door in the exact same manner that he had a few minutes earlier—though he was more confident that Regulus had actually obeyed his directive to wait in the bedroom—and walked over to the table where he sat across from his son.

Sirius wore a mulish look. His father took small comfort in the knowledge that, however difficult and high-strung his elder son was, at least _he_ , like his mother, could be relied on for predictability.

"What the hell has _he_ done?"

Sirius jerked his head at the door. Mr. Black smiled, unpleasantly.

" _He_ knows what he's done," Orion muttered, darkly. His son raised both eyebrows in surprise, and Mr. Black continued, in his usual sardonic mode. "It's immaterial. What he won't do is _admit_ to it. _That_ I cannot abide—it's no matter, though." He shrugged his shoulders and sat back down in the chair across from Sirius. "I _will_ get a confession out of him…sooner or later."

Sirius looked over at the door his brother had disappeared through, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I wouldn't count on it. Reg's a tough nut to crack. And—" He looked back at his father, smirking. "—When it comes to stoic, silent treatments, well—" He waved his right hand sarcastically towards Orion. "—He learned at the foot of the master."

Mr. Black scoffed, quietly.

"I suppose you think the methods _you_ learned at your mother's skirts are better," he pointed out, in a dry voice—Sirius flushed. "Histrionic _fits_ and shouting at the top of one's lungs does not seem to _me_ to be a prudent strategy when it comes to your brother, however."

"And least we say what we _think_ every once in an while," Sirius muttered, scuffling the back legs of his chair against the floor. Orion let out a low sigh.

"I didn't think _you_ enjoyed my candor much." Mr. Black raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seem to this morning."

Sirius dropped the chair legs back down with a clunk. His father watched him for a long moment, taking a slightly perverse pleasure in how his elder son, in contrast with Regulus, fidgeted under the scrutiny—clearly uncomfortable and unsettled by being watched by his sire. Of course, he'd had three years away from it, and surely must be out of practice.

 _Get used to it, my boy._ He thought, eyes lingering with distastefully on the wrinkled cuffs of his son's robes. A week back with them, and Orion was fast starting to think that he could never in good conscience let the boy out of his sight again.

"Did you bring me in here just to stare at me?" Sirius demanded, at last. "Or did you have something to say?"

"How much does the girl know?"

Sirius started at the abrupt subject change.

"N-nothing." He fidgeted in his chair—a telling sign as far as his father was concerned. "Why would you even—"

"—You weren't _at all_ surprised when your mother mentioned she'd accompanied Narcissa," Mr. Black cut him off, sharply—Sirius went very still, just then. "You _knew_ she was coming to the house—I'm sure of it." He tilted his head. "How?"

Sirius considered his answer to the thinly-veiled accusation with rather more care than he might've, in other circumstances. He leaned his elbow on the edge of his chair, adopting a conversational pose—not doubt to give the effect of thinking of the conversation less as a repeat of the morning, and more a casual chat between men at the club who hardly knew each other, and whose social circles only occasionally overlapped.

"It was a lucky guess, that's all. She told me Narcissa has some stupid idea of trying to fix her up with Regulus, it wasn't difficult to connect the dots. What I can't figure out is why _you_ were so surprised." He picked up the cork from the table and picked off pieces from it. "You didn't think Cissy was going to let herself be shipped off to London by her husband for a week without bringing _something_ to keep her occupied, did you?"

"Who says that it was her husband's idea?" Mr. Black asked his son, dryly.

"Just a feeling I have."

His father only rolled his eyes. Sirius frowned—he gave Orion a sudden, canny look.

"Does she _really_ not even _suspect_ about Malfoy?"

"Who—Narcissa?"

"No—Mum!" Sirius said, impatient. "About him and—Lestrange. About all of it."

Orion merely blinked at him—the inscrutable look that lesser men—or those many people for whom he was a great enigma—would have mistaken for dull wits, or a certain obtuseness of mind. Sirius had abandoned the cork he'd been rolling back and forth on the table, and was now giving his father one of those looks of profound self-righteous disbelief that had been favorites of his teenaged years.

"Doesn't she wonder—who got Regulus in with that lot?" The frown lines in his father's forehead deepened. "At some point even _she_ has to—I mean…what—does she think, Reg rolled out of bed one day and decided on a whim to go on a fetch and carry errand for You-Know-Who?"

At this flippancy, his father's grim look became more pronounced.

"Your mother—you know well that she doesn't think about political matters—" Sirius let out a laugh of strangled disbelief. "She has other priorities, and anyway—she leaves all that to _me_."

"It explains so much." Sirius leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "Remind me next time I see her to wise Mum up about the state of the world. If she's been relying on _you_ to keep her up to date—"

"—Your mother knows _exactly_ as much as she needs to," Orion interrupted, forcefully. He snapped his wand against the table, and the sharp bang of sparks that blew out of the end made his son sit up to attention. "What I am more _immediately_ concerned with is what the girl staying in my _house_ knows."

"Don't worry about _her._ " Sirius put his hands behind his head. "I'm taking care of it."

Black patriarch's obvious skepticism only grew—Orion gave him one of his patented probing looks. Sirius folded his arms in front of his chest and glared, defiantly.

"She doesn't know anything about me or why I was there, and she—won't be a problem for much longer." Sirius sat up straighter. "For either of us. Trust me."

The very idea made Orion laugh out loud. Trust _him_? _Really_?

"I'm finding it rather difficult to do that, at the present moment—"

"Well, you might have to!" Sirius shot back, exasperated. "Why would I be lying about this? You _know_ I have as much reason to want to be rid of her as _you_ do."

The two men looked at each other. Orion considered this point—it was difficult to argue with the rationality of it, on its face.

Of course, he also knew his son.

"Fine. I'll take you at your word—on _this,_ and drop the subject for the moment."

"Miracles _do_ happen," Sirius muttered, under his breath—though he bore every outward sign of great relief, and his father was left with the uncomfortable feeling that he'd let him off too easy, as far as this particular avenue.

But it was late—and he was tired.

"You seemed…agitated at dinner," Orion observed, after a moment.

"Who wouldn't be?" Sirius tapped his fingers against the table. "I could barely keep up, between keeping your massive lies to Mum straight, and Regulus having a fit every five seconds—"

"—I meant when your mother brought up the subject of _Bellatrix_."

In a flash he lost all appetite for sport.

"I wasn't anymore bothered by _that_ than I am by anything she says," he mumbled, sinking down in his chair.

The falseness in his too-bright tone was very apparent.

"You made some interesting observations about her," the older man continued, leaning back in his own chair. "What exactly were you insinuating?"

Sirius snorted.

" _You_ know—I all but said it outright. Your wife was the only one at that table that did not understand what I meant—and you'll notice Regulus wasn't _piping_ up to argue with me." To Sirius's delight, at this—for the first time since this morning, his father was genuinely ruffled. "I know exactly why Bella didn't show her face last night."

Orion narrowed his eyes.

"Why?"

"She was with _him_."

Mr. Black stare at his son for upwards of thirty seconds, his mind not fully able to comprehend the meaning of his the words—and the sly insinuation Sirius was not even bothering to conceal.

"No—surely not."

Sirius laughed, sourly.

"You know why her husband was at that party—is it _so_ difficult for you to believe she _wasn't_ there for the same reason?"

Apparently—and given everything he must know by now, Sirius found that pretty laughable—the idea that his niece might also be a Death Eater was a bridge too far for Orion. He had not seen his father so shocked and disturbed since—well, he'd discovered his son in disguise the night before.

"That is—totally _preposterous_ ," Mr. Black muttered, standing up from the table again. "And I don't believe it for—for one minute."

Sirius did a double-take—he really meant it.

"Merlin, why _not_?" he demanded, incredulously.

His father hemmed and hawed for a moment—amused, Sirius watched him try to come up with an answer.

"Because—for God's sake, she's a _woman_."

It took only a moment for this entirely sincerely meant assertion to set in before Sirius laughed—a hearty guffaw that immediately put his father's back up.

"Well—I guess _Lord Voldemort_ is an _equal-opportunity_ murderer, then." Orion's face hardened. " _That's_ the part of all this that shocks you—Lord, that's _rich!_ Don't worry, sir—I'm sure she doesn't forget what she owes her family when she's slitting throats, and that she's very ladylike when she mops up the blood, makes sure it doesn't get on her _petticoats_ —"

"—Is _that_ supposed to be funny?" Orion snapped, harshly—Sirius started in surprise. "Do you think this is all a _joke_?"

Sirius felt a stab of something like guilt twist in his stomach.

"I wish it _was_ ," he said, and his voice held a cynicism that, whatever Sirius's other high-strung tendencies, Orion had never heard there before. The boy let out a weary sigh. "It's not funny at all, really—it's just…facing it every day, the reality of it—I get numb. Makes me—well, it was in poor taste, anyway." He laughed, humorlessly. "I'll admit—I shouldn't have said it."

His father, still glaring with stern reproof—softened just a little.

"Do you have any proof of this—outrageous claim?"

Sirius scrunched up his face.

"You've known her her _entire_ life— _that_ should be proof enough." His expression turned grim. " _Bellatrix_ is not the type of woman to sit at home and let her _husband_ have all the fun." He sighed and ran a hand absently through his hair. "She even recruited him to cover for her absence last night."

Sirius laughed—as cold and unhumorous a sound as he was capable of making. He had been thinking of Bella the night before—the moment he had realized where it was he'd found himself—the second the shock of seeing Arcturus and the rest of the family had worn off—he had been in dread at the thought of coming face-to-face with her. It was only when he realized she wasn't there that his heart had slowed back down.

She scared him—she always had.

He blinked and shook his head, forcibly banishing the thought. When he looked back into his father's eyes, Sirius saw something unexpected—beneath that tightly controlled exterior, a hint of—unsettled repulsion.

Orion really _was_ rattled.

After another minute of silent probing stares—Legilimency or mind games, the younger man couldn't figure which—

"It's been a long day," he said at last, stiffly. "All that needed to be said, was." Orion quirked an eyebrow. "Probably a great deal _more_ was said than need be."

Sirius unfolded his arms. _Thank God for small miracles._ He'd half been afraid Orion would keep him there all night. That would be a logistical problem for him—on a number of levels.

"At last, we agree."

Mr. Black flicked his wand at the door—it opened.

"Come." He pulled out Sirius's chair with his wand, jerking the young wizard up from where he was slouched over the table. "Your brother's waiting for us in the other room."

Sirius rose to his feet—too eager for the tantalizing promise of Orion shoving off to think too much about what that long look his father had given him meant.

They found Regulus sitting cross-legged on the bed, trying and failing to read through the book of family letters Sirius had abandoned there hours before. Orion's elder son flung himself down on the bed next to his brother, curling his legs up underneath himself.

"You'll be happy to hear that I am leaving you to your own devices," Mr. Black informed his two sons, wearily.

"Thank, God," Sirius muttered, not bothering to say it under his breath. Regulus nudged him.

"—But not before we settle a few things." Orion finished, briskly. "Sirius—you had an assignment from me."

At this unhappy reminder, his son flopped back down the bed. The father would not be deterred—he cleared his throat in the pompous manner that seemed to have been tailored to annoy his eldest.

"I want to see what you accomplished—and inspect it."

"It's all in the wardrobe."

Orion crossed his arms and tapped one foot impatiently on the floor. Realizing that his father was not going to pick up on his cue to help himself to the contents of the wardrobe (or the subtext, which was to leave him alone), Sirius vaulted off the bed and over to closet. He wrenched open the doors, pulling out the large sacks he'd haphazardly shoved in there a few hours earlier. He unceremoniously dumped the bags—which were still charmed to carry far more than they should be able to, so each poured forth packages like a deluge—onto the bed at Regulus's feet.

"There they are—it's all of it, everything on your list." He marched over to the bedside table and snatched up a sack and a stack of papers. Before Orion could protest, his son had shoved them into his free hand. "Here's your receipts and here's your _gold—_ and before you ask, _yes_ , every last _knut_ that should be is there."

Mr. Black, eyes still fixed on Sirius, weighed the bag of gold in the hand to which it had been thrust.

"I can count that money in front of you, if you'd like."

Orion didn't even bother responding to this pert remark. He tucked the gold into his robes and carefully looked over the large pile of presents.

"This is—quite an accomplishment for a single afternoon." Sirius nodded—somehow managing to make even that simple action petulant. Both of Orion's eyebrows rose—he exchanged a look of surprise with his silent younger son, who was stoically watching them from the corner of the bed. The dark-haired boy still seemed a tad shell-shocked from their earlier exchange, but his dark eyes followed the path his father's took as he carefully inspected each and every package. "How efficient you are."

Sirius flung himself back on the bed next to Regulus.

"It's shopping, sir—not exactly _alchemy._ "

"They're all already wrapped," Orion observed, dryly.

"I even put the names on the outside of each one, so you can write out the tags with your handwriting and everything." He blinked his large gray eyes up at Mr. Black, with faux innocence. "Is there something wrong?"

Mr. Black did not shower his son with the adulation he felt he deserved at this thoughtful gesture. Far from it—his father was now staring at him with a horribly knowing suspicion that suggested he knew _exactly_ what his wayward firstborn was up to.

"Forgive me—did it not occur to you that I _might want_ to inspect the contents of these boxes before I hand them over to my relations to be opened, willy-nilly?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Not really. You told you what you wanted me to get, I got it. What's the matter, Father…" Sirius looked away from the ceiling and back at his father, smirking. "Don't you trust me?"

Another quick perusal of the various packages and boxes—Orion's eyes lingered on the largest of the lot, upon which his son had affixed a label with the words "For Irma 'Crabapple' Black" derisively scribbled on it.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line.

"Naturally, I do," he answered, smoothly.

Orion waved his wand—in a flash, everything was neatly stacked. Another wave, they had returned to their bags, and after a third—vanished into thin air—presumably back to Grimmauld Place.

"The gold seems to be in order. I have no doubt that the receipts are as well. You are, after all, a very capable young wizard—when you put your minds to things." Orion studied his fingernails. "You seem to have done so this afternoon."

Sirius snorted—but then noticed the unpleasant smug smile on his father's face that always spelled trouble.

"Of course, it goes without saying that if a single person in this family questions the gift they receive from me this year—" Sirius sat up in bed. "—You will pay for _all of them_."

Sirius bolted upright, face stricken. Regulus at his right side had blanched, and his father—far from looking upset, had seen the reaction for what it was—a confirmation of his shrewd suspicion. His malicious smile widened.

"So, for your sake and the sake of your bank account," he continued, airily. "I hope you haven't included any _surprises_ among your purchases meant to make me look the fool."

Sirius ground his teeth and glared at his father—Regulus rubbed his forehead, expressing without words more than any words could say about Orion's feelings on the entire evening.

"I wouldn't know how to do that even if I wanted to, _sir_ ," Sirius spat, through gritted teeth. "They'll love all their gifts—believe me."

"They had _better_ ," Mr. Black said—his tone promising that his threat of holding his son financially responsible was no idle threat. "What about the dress robes? Did you pick some up, like I told you to?"

"I got fitted for them—I still have to pick them up," Sirius muttered, peevishly. "I suppose you want to inspect them, too."

"It depends on whether you followed the spirit of my directive or not," Orion replied, sarcastically. "Are they in good taste, or are they garish and offensive to the eyes?"

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"They're perfectly fine," he said, tiredly. "Mother won't object to them, which I know is all that matters to you as far as what I wear on Christmas goes." He tugged on a tassel attached to a pillow. "If you really must see them, I'll—show you as soon as I pick them up."

Mr. Black nodded, curtly. If Sirius had gotten some idea in his head to try to shock Walburga, he was fairly confident he'd just knocked it out of his foolish son's head.

There was only one thing left to discuss, now. Orion's eyes fell on the pile of books stacked haphazardly on floor and around the bedside table.

"Regulus—" His youngest snapped to attention. "I gave Sirius some books of letters, with instruction that the two of you should begin reading them at once. Did he do so?"

"Yes, Father." Regulus gave Sirius a sideways look. His elder brother had retreated into the tried and tested pose of staring at the wall with his arm crossed, ignoring all family members in his immediate vicinity. "I took half of them when he—got back."

Orion folded his arms behind his back and studied his two sons sitting next to each other on the large bed. Regulus was, as usual, the one who sat upright, paying rapt attention—though his face looked a little pale, and he still had that curiously closed-off look that disquieted his father far more than any of Sirius's ravings did.

"As you both had the entire afternoon to peruse the collection, I'd like to hear what progress you've made. Regulus—what did you start with?"

"The 1820s. I got through all of them through January of '24." Regulus bit his lip. "I haven't found anything yet, but I will get through the decade by the end of tomorrow, I think, if I really but my nose to the grindstone—"

"— _That_ would be a complete waste of time."

Both of them turned to look at Sirius.

"What are you talking about?" his younger brother asked, annoyed. There were few things that could rouse Regulus's temper, and being shown up by Sirius was top of the list. Sirius sat up in bed, wearing a look of annoying superiority over his brother.

"Because, Reg—the necklace wasn't even _made_ until at least 1839." Orion and Regulus's faces flashed with identical expressions of surprise—which became even more pronounced when Sirius pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to read, verbatim. "By—let's see, probably a family of Swiss goblins named _Virkander_ , judging by the exquisite hinge styling on the settings of the opals, which apparently only came into vogue with continental silver smithing in the late 1830s—"

" _Accio letter_!"

" _Hey_ —!" Sirius yelped, as the heavy parchment flew out of his slack grip. "I was _reading_ that!"

But it was too late—Mr. Black had already snatched the letter out of the air. His eyes tore across the wrinkled parchment. Sirius jumped off the bed and in three long strides was in front of his father—though one look told him all he needed to know about the likelihood of him getting it _back_.

"This is—" He looked up, genuinely shocked. "—This is a bill of appraisal of Elladora's necklace from—Borgin and Burke's. From _1904._ "

"Yeah, it is—" Sirius reached for it, and almost on instinct, his father pulled it up and out of his son's reach. "And I paid good money for it, so if you don't mind, I would like it back, now!"

"This is extremely detailed— " Mr. Black said, shaking the letter in front of Sirius's face. "Where on earth did you _get_ it?"

He didn't need to wait for an answer from his son, for as quickly as he had demanded it, he realized. Understanding passed over Orion's face—and then, just as quickly, supreme displeasure.

"There is only _one_ person I can think of who would be in possession of such a document—" He crunched the parchment in his fist. "—But I cannot think even _you_ would be so supremely foolish as to alert _him_ to your interest."

His son blinked up at him, innocently—which was all the confirmation Orion needed. He swore, loudly.

"Of all the hare-brained, ill-advised, _stupid_ things to do—"

Regulus, meanwhile, had snapped somewhat out of his dazed stupor, and was looking at his brother with a similar expression of shocked disbelief.

"Oh, Sirius—you didn't go to _Burke_!"

Sirius looked between his thunderstruck brother and the father he had not imagined still had the energy left to be this angry with him.

"I only—sent him an owl last week, just—asking if he had anything on it and offering to pay if he did," Sirius invented, quickly. Orion's eyes flashed out a warning, and so he continued, hastily, "Look, I was doing what _you_ asked me to. If you want to get that necklace on a legal pretext, you have to know everything about what you're dealing with. Who better to ask than the keeper of all the Burke family secrets—a man happy to sell to the highest bidder?"

"Do not give me some cock-and-bull story about acting in _my_ interest," Mr. Black hissed, furiously. "You might've spoken to Belgravius Burke about the opals, but that is _not_ the _real reason_ you went to him."

The daring smile fell off his son's face—for that shrewd expression was unmistakable. Orion knew.

"If you think _Burke_ will be the one to help you find a way out of your current _legal_ predicament, you are in for a hard lesson, my boy." Sirius's lip twitched, but he said nothing—only glared up at his father. "He is your grandfather's man, through and through—a fact you should _well know_."

"Arcturus doesn't want me in the family," Sirius interrupted, quietly. There didn't seem much point in pretending he hadn't done it, at this point. "And Burke's not going to tell him about it, anyway."

" _You do not know that,"_ Orion hissed—raising his voice, but Regulus was the one who flinched, not Sirius. "Why do you think my father pays him so well? It isn't for his _sparkling_ personality."

"Merlin—I'm paying him off, alight?" Sirius exclaimed, hotly. "And more importantly, I happen to have something on him." His father blanched. "You're not the only one in this family capable of doling out threats."

Far from comforting his father, Orion only grew more alarmed.

" _You_ threatened him? _You_ threatened Belgravius Burke?" He repeated, in the same tone of voice one might have asked the question of a garden vole or toddler. "With _what,_ dare I ask?"

"That's my business," Sirius replied, evasively.

Orion rubbed his temples with both hands—his head pounded with a bad combination of liquor and aggravation. He was torn between the anger he barely had the strength to express and a new, more concerning feeling in the pit of his stomach—the notion that in the three years since he had run away, far from growing out of his adolescent recklessness, this rashness had become a fixed part of his elder son's personality.

Or worse, that he had moved onto self-destruction.

"By Salazar, you have a gift for getting in over your head," Orion said, wearily dropping his hands back to his sides. "He is a cunning man—and _you_ are well out of your depth. Do you have a death-wish? Or is this just about doing the exact opposite of what I tell you?"

"If you're _really_ so worried about it, why don't you go down there and bribe him yourself? He's probably sitting there waiting for you." Sirius glowered up at Orion, taking petty pleasure in the red around his father's collar. "Of course, if you _do_ go storming into his office tomorrow, he's only going to know how desperate you are, and drive up the price."

"You haven't given me much of a choice in the matter," Orion observed, coldly. He glanced over at his younger son, who was currently trying to make himself as small and invisible as was possible without actually sliding off the bed and pressing himself against the wall. " _Next_ time you have one of your brilliant notions to broadcast our situation to the whole country, you _might_ give a thought to the _rest_ of us." Sirius made a deliberately obnoxious sighing sound, but his father only raised his voice a decibel to speak over it. "Your actions may very well have put this entire family at risk—"

"—You aren't worried about the 'whole country' finding out—you're worried about Arcturus!" Sirius shot back, archly. "As far as _him_ knowing goes—you can't blame _me_ for that, because he already suspects, and has since _before_ last night."

Orion froze.

"What are you talking about, boy?"

Sirius shrugged and narrowed his eyes, a hint of malice playing across his young face. His father, arms folded behind his back in a paternal pose, met the gaze with an equally steely one of his own.

"Granddad's onto you, that's all—he knows you're lying to him, and worse, he's got it in his head that your _sister_ knows something about it." Mr. Black's eyes widened in shock. "So, I hope for _your_ sake _you_ haven't made the colossal error of confiding in Lucretia. Everyone knows she can keep a secret for about as long as she can keep her _head_ , and when it comes to your father, the slightest bit of pressure and she blows up like a house of Exploding Snap cards."

"How—how do you—?" Orion sputtered—facing turning purple. He was hardly capable of even finishing the question. "How could you _possibly_ know all that?"

Sirius looked up from the blankets he'd been fiddling with and smiled, archly.

"Maybe I'm a _better spy_ than you give me credit for."

Orion set his jaw and, breathing long and hard out of his nose, with considerable effort schooled his completely natural desire to box his eldest son's ears.

"What you _are_ is an overgrown child—one who has expended considerable effort this past week trying to find a way out of fulfilling his responsibilities. This is an utterly futile gesture, and my patience with it—and _you_ —is waning." Orion said, his voice scathing. "I suggest that you give up your dreams of ' _escape'_ and instead focus your attentions on becoming a productive member of this family. You will find it far less frustrating, I assure you."

Sirius curled his legs back up under him and flopped back on the bed. Regulus, at his left, stared down at his brother, looking rather forlorn. Their father cleared his throat.

"I wish you both goodnight," Mr. Black said, tersely. He looked between them, his displeasure at having such a pair of disappointing sons evident. "Sleep well—you'll need your strength for all the hard work I'm going to put you to tomorrow."

Between the two of them, only Regulus murmured a 'good night' back—and it was a feeble, distant sound. Without another word, Orion took a pinch from the Floo powder jar on the mantle and stepped into the fireplace, disappeared.

The two brothers both remained where they were on the bed, side-by-side, unmoving. Neither spoke for upwards of a minute—until Regulus broke the silence.

"Why would you go to _Burke_ for help, of all people?"

"I don't know—it seemed like a good idea at the time." He picked up a pillow and shoved his face in it, despairingly—he had been asking himself the same damn question all afternoon. "It was a mistake—that seems to be all I'm capable of, at present." Sirius dropped the pillow onto the floor and blinked at his brother.

A thought had struck him.

"Did _you_ know that Mum tried to dispute Uncle Alphard leaving me money in his will?"

"No," his brother answered—Sirius could see he was telling the truth—but also not surprised by this news.

"But you _did_ know about her removing him from the tree."

Regulus's eyes narrowed.

"Of course."

"Why—" He sat up, considering his brother thoughtfully. "Why would she do that over—a bit of gold?"

A black cloud passed over Regulus's face.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked, his voice a quietly incredulous. "You don't— _realize_?"

"Obviously not," Sirius rejoined, sarcastically. "Or I wouldn't be asking you, would I?"

He didn't even get a smile out of Reggie. In fact, Sirius's younger brother seemed more angry than he had been since his outburst the morning an army of undead corpses had nearly killed him.

"You _still_ don't get it." His voice was flat and pitiless. "You don't understand _anything_."

Sirius flopped back down on the bed.

"Apparently not."

There was another lengthy silence, before—

" _Why_ do you always have to be like this?"

Sirius blinked up at the crack in the ceiling. Regulus's bitter words were ringing in his ears. He wished he had an answer.

"I don't know," he admitted at last, with a sigh. "I wish I—I really don't." Sirius rolled over and turned his head on the pillow to face his brother. "They just—they _make_ me this way, Reg."

Regulus gave him a single disgusted look before standing up and walking out of the bedroom again. For the third time that day, he slammed the door shut behind him, leaving Sirius alone with his gloomy thoughts.

Sirius sighed and rolled back into the musty pillow.

 _He_ hadn't believed it either.

* * *

"I was beginning to wonder if you had gone back to Slughorn's to _finish the barrel_."

It would have been too much to ask for a moment's peace this evening, Orion thought, stepping out of the grate. As Mr. Black brushed off the light soot on his robes and looked up at his wife, standing with her arm's crossed in front of the basement kitchen fireplace and showing every sign of the impatient irritation that always came when he kept her waiting, he was struck by a curious thought. Despite his prodigious natural talent for vexation, Sirius was _still_ not the person in Orion's family most capable of driving him mad. He eyed his wife, warily.

 _Out of the cauldron and into the flame._

"Where are Narcissa and—" He hesitated. "—The _other_ one?"

Walburga helped him out of his cloak, briskly.

"Cissy just retired. She was waiting up for you, but was fatigued—and you took so long." She gave him a pointed look. "—The _other_ one apparently went to bed _ages_ ago." Mrs. Black sniffed, dismissively. "She must have a weak constitution."

Orion visibly relaxed. His wife folded his cloak neatly, to prevent creasing, and hung it up on a hook by the fire.

"You were with the boys for a long time," she remarked, trying to keep her tone casual—and failing dismally. "What were you talking about?"

He was reminded unpleasantly of her son with his ear pressed to the door. Curiosity was _catching_ in this family.

"It's a Christmas surprise we're planning for you," Orion replied, sardonically. "I would hate to spoil it."

Mrs. Black rolled her eyes—but she let the subject drop, for she had a keen sense of when he was firm in his resolve and when she had room to exert her enormous will on him to great effect. This was a case of the former. He knew her moods no less well—after nearly a quarter-century of marriage, Orion could recognize when she was working herself up to saying what was really on her mind. It was a mark of her particular brand of feminine slight-of-hand that she never _would_ just come out and admit it.

"I thought you were being rather hard on him at dinner tonight." Orion leaned leaned his hand against the mantle—of _course_. Of course _that_ was what she wanted to talk about.

Her precious little hellhound.

"I don't know what you mean," he murmured, hoping she would let it drop but knowing her too well to count on it.

"Yes, you do. Don't think I didn't notice—you were snapping at him just about every five minutes."

"I am not going to _coddle_ either of them."

Walburga frowned and fiddled with the broach at the base of her throat.

"Weren't _you_ the one who said just last week that we couldn't push too hard?" she asked, quietly, and he noticed that there was the very rare note of uncertainty in her voice.

"I was talking about _you_ , not me—and anyway, I was wrong!" He spun on his heel, startling Walburga. "He needs to be pushed, he _needs_ to be put in his place. That requires discipline and order and—" He noticed the expression of intense amusement on her face and faltered. "—And…strictness."

It was a lame finish, and they both knew it.

"Well, I'd say you've left _that_ about a decade late," his wife observed, dryly. Her husband had retreated to the fire and was now tending it with a poker, moodily.

"I'm making up for lost time," Orion shot back, irritably, looking over his shoulder. "It'd be a hell of a lot easier if I didn't have _you_ undermining my orders all the time." She tutted audibly, which got his back up. "You know _why_ he doesn't respect me—it's because he thinks _you_ rule the roost."

Mrs. Black gave him a challenging look, as if to ask, 'well, why don't you prove him wrong?'

"I don't _undermine_ you," she said, loftily. He scoffed under his breath, but Walburga had already clearly moved on from that battle, for she had come up behind him, stealthily. "And he respects you plenty. I can see it—you've got him well in hand." She batted her eyelashes and tilted her head at him. "I do wonder how you're doing it, of course…"

"Oh, I bet you do, madam…" He met her gaze, amused in spite of himself—if she thought he'd fall for one of her female tricks at this stage in the game, his wife had another thing coming. He frowned—under the light of the fire, Walburga seemed very careworn—and smaller, somehow, than she normally looked. Orion sighed and brushed his fingers gently on her shoulder. "Content yourself with the knowledge that it's being handled and don't worry about the rest."

She pursed her lips, but seeing the stubborn set of his jaw, decided not to push. There would of course be other opportunities to sate her curiosity on this point.

She dipped her head in a manner that was almost coquettish, and her voice went slightly sweet.

"I was wondering—who do you like better, Maria Selwyn or Gertrude Rowle?"

At the mention of these two persons—girls of whom Orion only had the vaguest notion, and apropos of nothing—the middle-aged man frowned. The back of his neck prickled, a warning bell went off in his head.

"For what?" he asked, slowly and with unmistakable suspicion.

She stared at him like he was an idiot.

"For a daughter-in-law, of course!" Walburga said, dropping the coquette act for the true impatience she felt.

Orion blinked—and then the full implication of this sentence hit him.

"For God's sake, woman—you _cannot_ be in earnest."

Her nostrils flared dangerously. But of course, Orion knew—for his wife never joked about anything.

"We are going to have to find him a respectable girl to marry sometime!" she pointed out, brandishing her wand at the wire. The flames jumped up, and Mr. Black stepped backwards, on reflex. "I think it would be better, on the whole, if it were sooner, now that you are—taking a firmer hand."

 _Women_! They never had their priorities in order.

"This is not the time for this, Walburga—you know full well this is the _last_ thing either of us should—"

"—I asked you which girl you _liked_ better, not for your opinions on anything else," she said, in a waspish voice. "If you don't intend to take an interest in who our son marries and in securing his position, that's fine. I'm perfectly capable of making decisions all on my own. I just thought you would _appreciate_ being consulted."

Mr. Black stared hard at his wife of over twenty years. When it wasn't driving him up the wall, her amazing confidence left her beleaguered husband in awe. He could hardly see a way forward for them that didn't end in ruin—or worse, and here was she, a woman for whom the only life or death question at present was the identity of her son's future bride.

Astounding. She was amazing in every sense of the word. Aggrieved as he felt, he couldn't—he didn't want to be the one to drag her back to reality.

"This is an absurd conversation to be even entertaining, but as I see you can't be _dissuaded_ ," he said, with forced patience. "Let me give you the facts, Walburga. I must tell you, quite frankly, that neither the Rowles nor the Selwyns—or indeed _any_ family with good sense—are going to allow their daughter to marry a wizard who is not only a _pariah_ among his own people, but is also a _political radical_. And furthermore—" His wife pressed her mouth into a thin line.

"—I wouldn't foist that son of yours onto _any_ girl, respectable or not, for all the world."

Mrs. Black's face flushed an angry purple at these aspersions being cast on her firstborn.

"You're almost as much use as your sister is," she said, tartly. "She was no help at all when I asked her if she could think of anyone who would suit. It's very vexing." She tilted her head. "I don't think Gertrude Rowle is nearly pretty enough, and I can't see her running a household well—her mother's is dreadful—and of course Maria Selwyn is as empty-headed as a bird, and she squints—" Her husband stared at her in amazement as she continued to methodically list the defects of these prospective daughters-in-laws. "—and none of the Greengrasses are old enough, yet. I can't think of _any_ girl who's quite—right."

"The girl in question would have to be _mad_ to take him. Compromised mental competency should be your starting place when looking for a candidate." His face flushed, unpleasantly, when he fully registered the meaning of what she had just said. "Wait a moment, what have you—you're not involving _Lucretia_ with your ridiculous schemes, are you?"

Mrs. Black huffed and rolled her eyes—without her 'schemes', nothing would ever get done in their family. How like Orion to not see that.

"Why do you think she called me for tea this morning? She always _did_ think our troubles with Sirius were a good joke—your sister is highly entertained by my great trials and sufferings." Upon uttering this statement of pure melodrama, Mrs. Black's expression turned resentful, and she added, significantly. "She wanted to hear about the flat where he lives. What it looks like—you know, I think she's of half a mind to drop in and visit, to see it herself! Can you imagine?"

His temple throbbed. Orion muttered a few curses, ending with a rather rude consignment of his sister to the devil.

"When we agreed to do this, Walburga—you _do_ remember the conversation we had?" She withdrew from him, mouth as thin as a straight-rule. "The part in particular about _absolute secrecy?_ "

"I'm not the one who told her in the first place," Walburga pointed out, dryly. He rolled his eyes and huffed—he could hardly argue with that. "Anyway, I gathered she doesn't know anything about Regulus, and that's what really matters."

"That's true—for now." He shook his head. "Of course, she'll realize pretty quickly he's not in France with his fiancée when she visits and _discovers_ him in that filthy hovel."

He could have almost laughed, to picture it—Lucretia was no great favorite of Sirius's, for she had loved to tease him since he was old enough to walk, and he had never mastered the trick of not rising to his aunt's bait. If he wasn't there when she arrived, Lucy would surely lie in wait for him, staging an ambush and refusing to leave until she'd riled him up as much as possible.

"She doesn't know where it is, thank God." They exchanged a look of momentary solidarity—his sister in her most irksome moments had a way of bringing them together. "Not from want of trying, of course—but I wouldn't let her pry the secret from me for all the world."

"Oh, if she's determined, she'll find out his address and drop in, unannounced." He clenched one fist, reflectively, fingers curled around his wand. "Anyway, it's not _her_ I'm worried about, really. It's my father. I have an idea he might—suspect she knows something."

Mrs. Black frowned, troubled and annoyed by this development.

"Why on earth would he?" she asked, perturbed. "How could he have found out so quickly?"

"It's just an—hunch I have," Orion said, evasively. His wife narrowed her eyes, suspicion piqued. "Oh, you know him—he's like a bloodhound when he gets the scent. He's not a fool, Walburga—and if he has a sense she knows something about Regulus and starts hammering Lucy over it, she'll likely let something slip—"

"Of course, Arcturus _would_ be your primary concern," Walburga muttered, voice snide. Orion's eyes flashed. "As always, he's the first thing you think of—before your wife and children, even."

Mr. Black kept his composure, despite the ugly flush on his cheek at her stinging rebuke.

"That son of yours certainly has inherited his mother's instinct to go for my _throat_ ," Orion observed, wryly. "You should be proud of him, madam. He's a credit to you."

She refused to dignify what would be taken by almost any other woman as an insult—but what was, as far as she was concerned, a great badge of honor—with a reply. It was quite beneath her. She merely gave her husband of nearly a quarter century the cool stare that indicated she thought he was not living up to the family name—the hardest criticism she could level without words.

"Well, what _do_ you suggest we should do?" she asked, after she was sure he understood the meaning of her expression. "Do you have a _better_ idea of what's to be done with Sirius Orion?"

"Chaining him to the _wall_ would be a good start," he replied, flatly.

She opened her mouth to protest—but Orion had already pushed past her, clearly finished with the conversation—and everything else.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" his wife squawked, as he glided past her and headed towards the stairs. "I am not done speaking to you—!"

But her husband was done listening—for he was already halfway up the stairs to the main foyer when he turned his head back around to address her, with an indifference meant to infuriate. It worked.

" _I_ will be in my study for the rest of the evening—and I don't wish to be disturbed by _anyone_." Mrs. Black opened her mouth, but in anticipation of the question, he waved her off and said, almost as an afterthought, "Spare yourself the trouble of waiting up for me—I'll sleep in my dressing room again."

And before she had time to tell him that he had no choice in the matter, for she would bar him entry to the bedroom, he was up the stairs to the main landing and gone. Walburga stared at the empty stairwell, an expression of supreme disappointment on her face.

Fine. If he wasn't going to help her—she would just have to take things into her own hands. It wouldn't be the first time she had to, where her eldest son was concerned.

There was a solution to the problem—it was merely a matter of waiting for it to present itself to her. She could be patient.

Walburga only hoped it would present itself before it was too late.

* * *

As a rule, Remus was unfailingly polite and always knocked before entering _any_ friend's domicile. On this occasion, however, the lateness of the hour coupled with his general skepticism regarding the reason he'd been called—as well as proximity to the next full moon—made him a tad _abrupt_ in manner, and he only knocked twice on the door to Sirius's flat before bursting into the sitting room.

"Alright, Sirius, I'm _back,"_ Lupin called loudly, from the doorway. At the sight of the dark-haired figure on the floor in front of the blaring television set, he frowned and crossed the room, grabbing his friend's shoulder. "So, are you going to tell me what is all this _about,_ or am I just supposed to—"

The figure on the floor spun his head around—face crimson. Remus did a double-take—the boy sitting cross-legged on carpet, face practically pressed up to a television set playing what appeared to Lupin to be some kind of night-soap—was _not,_ in fact, Sirius.

"Why are _you_ here?" Regulus demanded, crossly, shrugging off the other man's grasp.

Surprised, Lupin and let go took a step back. His eyes flicked from the blaring black-and-white television set and back to the younger Black brother's face. There was a haughty look of superiority there, as if he were challenging Remus to dare laugh.

"Sirius asked me to swing by," Remus said, faintly. His friend's younger brother was now making a half-hearted attempt at blocking the television set with his slight frame and was making a pretty poor showing of it. "…What are you _watching,_ Regulus?"

Regulus reached behind his back and fumbled with the knob, eventually managing to switch the set off.

"Nothing," he said, evasively.

"Was—was that _Coronation Street,_ or—?"

" _Oi_ , Moony!" A voice from kitchen broke in, startling them both. "—Is that you?"

Remus's query on the television habits of a teenage fugitive ex-Death Eater were cut short by the entrance of Regulus's older brother. Sirius had cast off the proper—albeit still borrowed—garb of a pureblood wizard in favor of his preferred sartorial choice: dark jeans, a pair of black wing-tipped boots, and the leather motorcycle jacket he had just found to replace the one his mother had 'purged' that night a week before when she had gone through his dresser and wardrobe.

He strode into the room, a heavy black helmet under one arm. Regulus scrambled to his feet.

"Why're you dressed like a Muggle?" he demanded, goggling at his elder brother's attire.

Sirius ignored him and instead strutted over to the cracked mirror near the door and began adjusting his already-perfect hair.

"I'm glad you're here," He called over his shoulder, to Lupin. "With _my_ luck today, I was afraid you'd be a no-show."

"Well, I wasn't. I did as you asked, and I came." Remus's sarcasm bounced off of Sirius like water off a duck—as he watched his impossibly good-looking friend preen, his irritation only grew. "Now do you mind explaining _why_ I'm here?"

"Are you _going out_?"

Sirius blinked in the mirror. Regulus had pushed past Lupin, and was standing behind his brother, glaring hotly at his reflection—which made it impossible for Sirius to keep snubbing him. It seemed the younger Black brother, tonight at least, was not going to allow himself to be ignored.

"Yes," he answered, bluntly—Regulus instantly went red. "Look, I know the timing's not ideal—"

"After _everything_ that's happened—

"—But I sort of, well, didn't have much of a choice—"

"—After everything Father said—Sirius, he's only been _gone_ twenty minutes—"

"—My hands are tied, so to speak, so…it _really_ can't be helped."

He pivoted on one heel and smiled in what he hoped was a winning fashion. Regulus, who had long since lost his taste for the charms of his elder brother, only glared more fiercely.

"Why?"

There was something so young about the question that Sirius was almost taken aback by it. He leaned over and winked, roguishly.

"Because…I have a _date_."

He gave Regulus a little pat on the cheek—which, if not successful in softening him, at least surprised the young Slytherin long enough that his brother was able to slip past him.

"So…who's the girl?"

Both Black brothers looked over at him in unison.

"You don't know her." A ghost of a grin flitted across his face as he looked at Regulus, still incensed by the door. He jerked a thumb towards his brother. " _He_ does."

" _Who is the girl,_ Padfoot?" Remus repeated, more firmly. Regulus had been momentarily stuck dumb, though that didn't stop him from opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

Sirius looked between them, savoring the identical expressions of expectation—and smirked.

"Colette Battancourt's her name."

Regulus let out a low moan of despair and sank into the sofa armchair. Lupin looked between them, his brow furrowed.

"Who's Colette Battancourt?" Remus asked, perplexed at the reaction the foreign name had elicited in Regulus, who had turned deathly pale and looked so shocked he might've stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Sirius tossed his head and shrugged.

"No one, really. She's French, she's visiting a great-aunt for a week, and—"

"—She is _our cousin's friend_ who just _happens_ to be staying with our parents in London at the moment—that's all!" A thought occurred to Regulus, and he threw an accusatory look and waved his wand in a poorly-conceived impression of their mother. "Wait—is _that_ why you were asking all those questions about her at dinner—were you trying to _ferret_ information from Mother and I?"

"Sure was." He clapped his horrified brother on the shoulder, jovially. "Thanks for giving me all those great talking points, Reg. You really painted a picture, there—budding novelist, thwarted would-be heiress—"

"—Ms. Battancourt is a _nice_ girl!" Regulus interrupted, hotly. "How did you even—wait, did you meet her _last night_?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall. A half an hour until the appointed meeting time—that should give him enough time for a quick spin around the neighborhood, if these two prats would stop asking questions.

" _Obviously_." He tossed the helmet onto the sofa. "I thought I gave her the slip then, but unfortunately we had another run-in today in Diagon Alley—that's how I find myself in the somewhat awkward predicament of having to take her out for a night on the town."

He spoke in the light, pleasant air of a man who, as far as women are concerned, is always willing to make the best of a bad situation. Regulus looked incensed—Lupin, however, who had been characteristically quiet (for he was thinking, hard) broke into the escalating argument between the two brothers.

"Wait a minute— _which_ cousin does he mean?" Remus asked, vaguely alarmed. Sirius lowered the hand that had been fiddling with his jacket's collar.

"Narcissa," he admitted, with a wince.

"Malfoy's _wife_?"

Sirius grimaced and nodded—a single jerk of the head.

"Guess I didn't, erm—mention to you the little bit about me being on a mission at Malfoy Manor last night, did I?"

No amount of casual flippancy could keep Moony from acting like, well—Moony.

"God, Sirius—talk about burying the lead!" Sirius smiled without a hint of shame—always better to double-down, when it came to heading off a Lupin lecture. "This girl you're taking out tonight is Narcissa Malfoy's friend?"

"She's been her personal guest at the stately manor home of the Malfoy—and now they're staying for the week at my parents' place."

"And you're going out to meet her—by prearrangement?" Sirius nodded—Remus went pale. "This seems utterly insane, even for _you_."

Regulus nodded vigorously from where he still lay prone on the sofa chair. Sirius had not thought that either one of them could be more annoying in a fuss-budget state than they already were—apparently when together they magnified the qualities he found most irritating in each.

Luckily he was good at handling both.

"I told you, this is for the Order—it's business, not pleasure." Sirius turned back to the mirror and wrinkled his nose. "She's not my type, _believe_ me—but after she threatened to tell tales about me to the world, I felt it was more prudent to take her out for a pint." He looked over his shoulder at Regulus. "Anyway, Reg—it's _you_ she's after."

His brother peaked his head up.

"What do you mean?"

"She told me herself—Cissy thinks you'd 'do well' together, and she's trying to 'make a match'." He mimed retching. "Guess being married to old forked-tongue has given our cousin a taste for being a great society lady, and she wants to expand her net—"

"—Wait a moment," Regulus sat back up on the chair, a shrewd look suddenly coming over his face. "Ms. Battancourt was involved last night, wasn't she? With you getting caught?"

Sirius saw a flash of concern in Remus's eyes in the mirror.

"She—might've been," he admitted, voice silky. Regulus conveniently ignored the 'let it lie' tone and got up from the chair. "Merlin, Regulus, you're almost as nosy as she is. Maybe you _would_ do well together."

"You got _caught_ last night?"

"Yeah—by my father, not the Death Eaters." Remus's jaw dropped—Sirius held up a hand to stop the slew of inevitable follow-up questions. "And yes, before you ask, it _was_ worse. At least _they_ wouldn't have drawn out the torture like _he_ intends to."

"And—and the girl?" Remus managed to choke out, when the shock of the other news had warn off. "What did she have to do with it?"

His friend ran a hand through his hair, messing up his own hard work. It couldn't be helped—he'd have to admit it.

"She's the one who tipped him off—she was there, she nicked my store of Polyjuice and gave it to him," Sirius said, very quickly. "Though that part was apparently by accident. It's a long and very boring story—"

"Doesn't sound like it to me!" Remus interjected, in wonder. "Sounds like a bloody bodice-ripper. Merlin, Padfoot, the scrapes you get into—"

"Well, can I tell you the rest later?" Sirius pointed at the clock. "I have a rendezvous with destiny."

About a hundred questions, beginning and ending with 'are you out of your mad mind?' buffeted around in Lupin's mind, jockeying for position. At last he settled on one, for no particular reason than that he thought he might get a straight answer.

"Does she know who _you_ are?"

Sirius laughed.

"Oh, no. That's why she strong-armed me into this. She's gotten it into her head that I'm _interesting_." Sirius couldn't help smirking. Regulus let out another laugh of despair directed toward the ceiling. "To be honest, flattering though it may be—it's becoming a bit of a problem."

"For _you_ or for _her_?" Remus asked, voice heavy with irony. Sirius ignored it—but his own smile flagged.

"I've managed to get her to stay quiet so far by keeping her intrigued." His brother and friend exchanged looks of severe disbelief. "But the _trouble_ is unlike most of her kind, she's not a total twit. Ms. Battancourt may, in fact, be of the _clever_ variety—rare indeed among they of the pureblood continental female set." He spoke with the grimness of one who sees an enemy worthy of respect. "She knows just enough about me to realize I don't want her telling Narcissa, so I have to play Quidditch—so to speak."

"So are you just planning on wooing her indefinitely in the hopes that she'll keep your secrets, or—?"

"For God's sake, will the two of you get a grip?" Sirius snapped, exasperated. "This is not a real date—it's all about getting _rid_ of her!"

Regulus sat up ramrod straight on the armchair. Remus's perturbed frown only deepened.

"What do you mean?" he asked, cautiously. He was wary from nearly a decade of ill-conceived Sirius Black plans.

"Don't you get it? She's staying with my parents, Remus. _My parents_." He dragged the phrase out for emphasis. "And _my mother_ is her chaperone while she's in London."

Regulus's eyes widened in understanding—Lupin seemed less convinced by what this point proved. He leaned his arm against the sofa, scratching his patched elbow and surveying his friend with a healthy level of skepticism.

"So what?"

"So—why do you think I asked her to meet me at _eleven at night_?" Sirius asked, smiling slyly. "My mother keeps wards and all kinds of security spells around that house. She has a sensor that goes off if you so much as touch the Floo powder jar without her permission. I gave the girl a tip about getting out of the house through the fireplace in the basement—if she takes the bait—"

"—You're _trying_ to get her caught," Remus murmured. Sirius slapped his hands together and threw a thumbs-up sign in Moony's direction. "Alright—but what if it doesn't work?"

He blew air out of his lips and shrugged. Regulus, sitting very still, watched his brother surreptitiously. Remus glanced over at him—he thought that, beneath his rather placid exterior, Sirius's younger brother probably had far greater capacity for observation than was apparent at first glance.

As far as Sirius went, he certainly seemed good at knowing when to look and what to look for, if that shrewd suspicion on his thin face was anything to go by. Sirius waved one of his leather riding gloves in Lupin's direction, dismissively.

"If by some _miracle_ she manages to get out of that house undetected—there's no way in _hell_ she's getting back in." He stuck his hands in his pockets. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other—a sure sign he was itching for action. "No one could be that lucky twice. Either way—when Walburga finds her, when she _catches_ her—it's not going to be pretty." He smiled, grimly, savoring the thought of his adversary bested. "Nice, respectable girl sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night—for God knows what reason—well, we can't have _that_ , now, can we? I would not be surprised if she was sent packing tomorrow morning, back to France."

At the expression of shameless self-satisfaction, Remus felt a glimmer of conscience.

"Is this girl really _that_ bad, that you'd trick her like this?"

Sirius frowned. That this might've appeared anything but a practical joke—and more importantly, for the victim's own good—had not crossed his mind once.

"Her— _nah_. She's alright. Just a case of rotten luck and too much curiosity—she's prim, when you get down to it. Very proper. " He clicked his tongue thoughtlessly. A black leather satchel which he often strapped to his bike lay on the floor by the mirror. He picked it up and hitched it on his shoulder. "Doesn't know what she's stumbled into, too risky letting her stick around—but she'll be out of my hair and safely back in Normandy soon enough. _That's_ what's important."

It was the tone of voice that Sirius always used to try to convince himself a bit of bad mischief was a good idea—and Remus instantly recognized it as such. He had an odd feeling that the Order was third priority for Sirius—first and second being taken up with petty revenge and his love of living on the edge.

"You don't seem to feel all that guilty about cutting this Colette Battancourt's holiday short," he remarked, dryly, as he watched his friend collect various contraband items he'd stowed in nooks in his living room and shove them in his bag. A comb, a box of Winston lights and some flavored crisps all emerged from odd places, behind a picture frame, taped to the back of the TV set—everything he needed for the date that was supposedly not going to take place. "It seems, well, a bit callous of you, if she _is_ so innocent—"

"Please—she knew what she was doing." He reached under the couch and pulled out a small bottle of liquor he'd concealed there. "Girls of _that_ social strata understand the rules of the game—and the consequences of breaking them." He straightened up, slipping the bottle into the front pocket of his coat. "She wants to play with a dragon—she gets _scorched_."

Remus glanced over at Regulus, then back at his brother. He resisted the temptation to ask what—or _who_ the dragon was in this metaphor.

"This is all a brilliant plan, Padfoot—ingenious, really." Sirius puffed out his chest with pride. "I only have one question."

Padfoot blinked.

"What?"

Remus cleared his throat, and asked, in a voice of pure innocence:

"Why do _you_ have to go?"

Sirius froze mid-putting his leather riding gloves on.

"What d'you mean?" he asked, dumbly. Remus smiled.

"If this is all about her getting caught, either breaking in or out of the house—" He spoke in a very even, reasonable tone. "Well, _you_ don't have to be there for any of it, do you? She'll get caught just as well without you as with, if the erm— _bait_ —" He gestured at his friend, and allowed himself a rare smirk at Sirius's expense. "—Was as _enticing_ to her as you seem to think."

Sirius cleared his throat and began to scratch the back of his neck. Remus glanced at the other side of the room. Regulus, evidently, also knew that was a tell that Lupin had touched a nerve.

"Well, you know—I just want to make sure—a quick pass on my bike to be certain—she's supposed to be on the Charing Cross side of the Leaky Cauldron." He waved a hand. "But she's not going to be—

"Well, she _might_ be there." He crossed his arms. "What happens if she _is_?"

Sirius laughed and swung his motorcycle helmet onto his shoulder.

"In the unlikely event that she does make it to the rendezvous spot, well, you know my mantra—" A slow smile creeped over his face, and slipped the helmet over his head. "—Sirius Black doesn't stand up girls."

The helmet obscured his vision, but he could well picture the look on both their faces.

"It won't come to that, though—if anything, she's going to stand _me_ up." He slapped Remus on the cheek with real affection and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry! I'll be back in a half-hour—troubles behind me, Padfoot loose and fancy free. You'll see."

And after a single cheeky wave in the direction of his quietly fuming brother, and twirling the keys to his motorcycle around one finger, he bounded out the front door and was gone.

As he so often did in the face of Sirius on a manic spree, Remus could only stare forlornly at the metaphoric trail of dust his friend had left behind.

"Is this girl _pretty_ , by any chance?" he asked, without fanfare or preamble. Regulus made a soft hissing noise of exasperation from the sofa seat.

"What _do_ you think?" Regulus mumbled, sullenly.

Lupin sighed and ran a hand through his already graying hair. He felt a splitting headache coming on, and this time it was _not_ because of his heightened senses.

"I hope he's right." He felt a little guilty about wishing the wrath of Mrs. Black on anyone, even a stranger—but it couldn't be helped. "About this plan. I hope it _does_ work."

"I don't think _he_ hopes he's right," the younger boy proclaimed, bitterly—and without so much as a backwards glance he got up and moodily skulked out of the living room, through the kitchen, and into the sanctuary of his bedroom.

Remus sighed and collapsed on the couch. He had a feeling that he was in for a long night of waiting up, either way.

 _I wonder what's on television?_

He turned on the set— _Coronation Street_ would have to do, he thought, wearily—and maybe the sound of the program would coax Regulus out of hiding.

He could use _sane_ company.

* * *

The engine roared; Sirius pressed the accelerator and grinned as he zoomed through a yellow light. The irate lorry driver turning right made a rude gesture out the window as he zipped in front of the truck through a gap not even the most talented Muggle stunt-driver would have been able to make it through with his neck intact.

Sirius let out a a boisterous cheer as he mounted the pavement and weaved between a post box and lamppost before splashing down into a great puddle on the corner. He could not believe he had been away this long—to be on Elvira again was _glorious_.

 _You and I aren't meant to be shut up,_ he thought, squeezing the handlebars. _I won't leave you in that garage again, girl._

Lily always teased for calling the bike a 'she' (" _What do you think it is? A ship_?") but Sirius felt no shame at his attachment, for it had been the first real thing he'd bought with gold all his own—the bike was _his_. Riding manically high on heels of the grief he felt over his Uncle Alphard's death and replete with the money which had seemed like a small fortune to him then—now, two years on, he realized all too well it was not enough to build a life on—he had sought out the object he had coveted in the secret depths of his heart since the first time he'd ever seen one, when he was just seven years old.

A Suzuki Bandit motorbike.

She was more than a bike. She meant _freedom_ —and that was the one thing he wanted, above everything else.

Sirius was tempted to take the helmet off and let the stinging wind of a December night blow through his hair—but it wouldn't do to get in another police chase so soon, and driving without a helmet on top of the speed he was want to take his baby up to was sure to get him pulled over. He glanced at the empty sidecar, thinking that the only thing that would make this better would be if James were riding pillion at his side.

Then he remembered how he and James had left things, and he felt a wave of chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

It brought him back to reality by reminded him of the facts—he hadn't called Remus back to cover for him at the flat just to go on a mere _joy ride_.

 _I guess I better go see the fruit of my handiwork._

He turned the bike onto Charring Cross, weaving in and out of traffic as he made his way slowly towards the oldest pub in London—the Leaky Cauldron. The miserable sleet of the morning and afternoon had cleared off, at last, and though there was a chill in the air which kept the traffic, for a London evening at least, light, the fog had lifted, and there was a clear sky overhead.

 _Not a bad night to be out on the town, come to think of it—_

 _I'm not going to get a chance,_ he reminded himself, forcing a kind of studied mental nonchalance on himself at the thought. _She's not going to be there, remember?_

As firmly as he believed it, Sirius could not control the odd twitch of anticipation in the pit of his stomach as he drew closer to the meeting spot. He didn't want her to be there, really—but when he reached the block before, he couldn't help but crane his neck, scanning the sidewalk. A large delivery van blocked his view the Leaky—and then it pulled up at the green light—and his view was clear.

A single hooded figure stood outside the tiny publican, invisible to everyone else on the street that night, save him.

Momentarily gobsmacked, the wizard turned his head, taking his eyes off the road for just a second—a blaring horn jolted him back to earth and he yanked the steering to the left, missing the bumper of the cab in front of him by mere inches and eliciting a series of angry honks as he cut in front of another lane and pulled the motorcycle up onto the curb of the block.

 _Not my best landing,_ Sirius thought, ruefully as he straightened up his crooked parking job. It looked like he'd—he _had_ crashed onto the pavement. _It's all that booze at dinner._ _I must be losing my touch._

Sirius's knees shook, and he stared down at the handlebars for a moment, to steady his nerves and recover from this near-miss. He was keenly aware his hands trembled, from adrenaline and something else—a nervous excitement he didn't want to examine too closely. After thirty seconds or so, he chanced a look up at the figure half a block away.

There was no mistaking her—not from this distance. That unassuming girl rocking back and forth lightly on her heels in front of the grimy pub was none-other than Ms. Colette Battancourt.

"Well, I'll be damned," Sirius muttered, into the helmet. He cut the lights and the engine, but made no motion towards getting off the bike—eyes remaining fixed on the girl. " _Hello._ "

As he was still a good ten yards away, she took no apparent note of the motorcyclist—likely due to the row of automobiles which obscured him from view, though Sirius would not have been surprised if she'd been trained to ignore Muggles as a matter of course. It was the first occasion he'd had in their brief acquaintance to study her at his leisure without her knowing, and he decided to take advantage.

Sirius was amused—but not surprised—to see that in spite of the location of the meeting spot, Ms. Battancourt had not eschewed her robes and cloak for Muggle garb. She probably didn't even own Muggle clothing—lots of pureblood girls didn't. The parents knew that, in the unfortunate event that they were compelled to take them into town and "mix", they could always pass their daughters' robes off as an old-fashioned frock. It was always the _boys_ who got the odd looks.

That had never stopped Walburga from dragging Regulus and he into the square of Grimmauld Place in full lace-to-the-throat absurdity, of course.

He flipped the visor of his helmet down to get a better look. Colette's eyebrows were drawn up in an expression of faint anxiety (had she been waiting long? Was she _worried_?) She looked unusually solemn and rather grave. Considering she was a young lady about to embark on a clandestine _rendezvous_ with a mysterious and handsome stranger, the girl didn't seem all that excited, Sirius noted, mildly irked. She seemed—to him, at least—a strange and contradictory witch—sensible one moment, reckless the next. This Ms. Battancourt knew nothing of her acquaintance, and yet she had agreed to this madness with hardly a second thought. Under that buttoned-up exterior, the young _mademoiselle_ was a secret thrill-seeker.

Sirius grinned—or perhaps she just thought she could handle him.

He raised his arm to wave at her and call out her name—but hesitated, the words of cheery greeting dying in his throat. He was suddenly struck by the wisdom of what Remus had said to him. Had Moony been right? What was he _doing_? The whole point of this had been to engineer her leaving the country and his orbit, not to draw her closer. She still hadn't spotted him—ought he to leave now? It was the sensible course—but as usual, the sensible course was not appealing to him.

Sirius had a stirring of conscience as he watched Colette Battancourt, unseen, shivering against the cold December air. There was something more callous in the idea of spending a night amusing himself before throwing her back to the wolves—he didn't like it. It made him feel dirty, caddish—someone who sounded suspiciously like Frank Longbottom murmured in his mind's ear, _"You're better than that."_

The image of his Walburga and Orion looking disapproving, stirred up in his mind—and on its heels, a wave of unexpected guilt. He blinked it away, furious at himself for the treacherous, weak moment.

The last thing he needed was to let the two of _them_ worm their way into his head, again.

And, anyway—he _wasn't_ better than that.

"Oi, love— _whatchu_ waiting there, for?"

Sirius stiffened in his seat. Ms. Battancourt hardly blinked—she gave the two men who had wandered out of the Muggle watering hole and were stumbling down the block in her direction a contemptuous look. Sirius thought it must've been studied—it didn't come naturally to her, though for the two hard-nosed louts, it did the trick.

"I am meeting someone," Sirius heard her say, in a cool voice. Her uppity tone did nothing to dissuade the men from stopping to converse.

"I'll say you are—you just did!" The taller of the two chortled, slapping his friend on the back. "Fancy a pint, missy? On Barney, here, mind—"

"I _said_ I am meeting someone," she cut him off, bluntly. "You will move along, _n'est-ce pas_?"

The men laughed.

"Or what?"

"Or I shall have to do something unpleasant to you," she informed him, promptly. Sirius flung his leg over the bike—then noticed the girl was gripping her wand rather tightly in her right hand. He let out a soft 'ha!' under his breath. "You would not like it, believe me."

"Ah, missy—I'm not so sure about that," the first man said, elbowing his friend and leering. "Why don't you show us what you have in mind—"

"I'll take it from here, gents."

All three of them turned their heads in unison.

"Nose out, laddie," Barney said, through a thick Welsh accent. Colette, still grasping her wand underneath the folds of her cloak, looked annoyed at the intrusion. Her eyes flicked from the helmeted head down the torso—black leather jacket and gloves, denim jeans and boots, and back to the motorcycle behind him. This was the only thing she took note of—her eyes lingering on it a fraction longer than the rest. "Unless you want to lose it."

Sirius pulled his helmet off and shook out his hair, smirking. Under the light of the streetlamp, he noticed her cheeks pinked when she recognized him.

" _You_ are late," she told him, with no less coolness than she'd employed against the Muggles—but Sirius wasn't fooled. He knew a blush when he saw one. "So late that I was—about to go, you know."

 _No you weren't,_ he thought, wryly—but he refrained from voicing the thought. She seemed to read his expression, anyway, for her blush deepened, and she turned her head stiffly in the other direction—the two men completely forgotten. Evidently her annoyance at him was far more irksome than any perceived threat from the two louts.

"You heard the lady, friends— _we_ are about to go." He turned to address the men, with as much cheerful contempt as he could muster. "So do us all a favor, and kindly _shove off_."

"Cheeky little bugger!" The shorter man sneered. "You got quite the mouth on you—"

They let out a series of colorful curses—and then Sirius reached for his back pocket and employed the trick he'd perfected with James—making the act of reaching for a wand look like pulling a gun. From his clothes all thought he was a punk, anyway—might as well act the part, as dress it.

"I have something else on me, as well," Sirius remarked, calmly, making the squeezing motion that signaled taking the safety off. _Thank God for Starsky and Hutch_. "Want to see it?"

Barney and his friend gave Sirius and the bike a once-over, and deciding that an altercation was not worth it at this stage in the evening, the two men shuffled off to the next watering hole, muttering about "posh little uppity gits" and a more feminine insult he was tempted to hex them for, keeping a low profile be damned.

The voices faded away, and Sirius turned back to Colette, grinning like a monkey. She was far less amused.

"I had them well in hand," the French girl informed him, coldly. "I did not need your assistance."

"I know." Sirius tossed his helmet back on the seat of the motorbike. "If you _did_ I'd have intervened much sooner." She pulled her cloak around her shoulders tighter and shivered. "Sorry I'm late, by the way. Been waiting long?"

"Long enough." She took a step towards him. "I was beginning to wonder if you—"

"—Had pulled a trick on you? A fast one?" He leaned on the lamppost and crossed his arms, smiling. "Now, does that seem like something I'd do, Ms. Battancourt?"

She laughed, airily—making it quite obvious she thought that was exactly the sort of thing he'd do.

"My slight tardiness is due to the fact that I lost my watch last night—it wasn't running right before then, anyway."

"Why are you dressed like a Muggle?" Ms. Battancourt gave him a skeptical once-over. He bristled just a smidgen—what, she didn't like his leather jacket? He stepped back from her and, in a gently mocking spirit, imitated the critical examination of clothing she'd just given him.

"You're the one who is dressed oddly, _mademoiselle,_ " he tutted, disapprovingly. "You might as well have a sign over your head that says 'I'm a witch'. We _are_ trying to be inconspicuous, here—"

"—I do not believe you have ever tried to be inconspicuous in your life, _monsieur_ ," she cut over him, flatly. He laughed—several rejoinders were on his lips, but before he could decide which one to employ, Colette had sidestepped him to get a closer look at Elvira.

"Does that—contraption _belong_ to you?"

He frowned, surprised by that abrupt turn. He slapped the seat of it like one would a much-loved horse.

"Is there some reason why it shouldn't, _mademoiselle_?"

She looked up from the headlight and gave him an odd look.

" _Non_ , I was just—" She hesitated, showing that flash of shyness he occasionally saw on her face. "Never mind. It is—nothing."

There was a story there, clearly. He let it pass for now. There'd be time enough—the night was young.

"Ever ridden one before?"

She let out an unladylike laugh.

"What do you think I am? Absolutely not."

He shrugged.

"Well, there's a first time for everything, as they say." Sirius asked, innocently, circle back around to his bike. "I hope you're not afraid of heights."

Colette looked at him, momentarily confused, before—

" _Vous voulez rire_!" she exclaimed, when it occurred to her what he meant. "Of course I am not, but you cannot mean that this—thing—"

"I enchanted it myself," he said proudly, making a great soaring arc with his arms. "Anyway, I want to take you someplace special—and this'll be faster, not to mention more expedient."

"Where is it?"

"A place Narcissa Malfoy would never take you. You'll enjoy it, trust me." He picked the helmet up—but didn't put it on. "Now, you've got two choices. You can ride pillion—" He gestured to the sidecar, which she examined with the proper amount of well-bred distaste, though he could see she was also curious about it. "Or you can ride behind me and, erm—" He smirked. "Hold on real tight."

He made a gesture to his chest. She blushed—but only for a moment before turning her nose up and saying, in a very dignified and superior tone of voice.

"I shall ride in this—sidecar," Colette told him, a tad missish. Sirius was confident that she wasn't really angry with him—that she only felt she _should_ be, for the sparkle in her blue eyes spoke to being intrigued and interested, in spite of all better instincts.

She only spotted a glimpse of his cheeky grin before he slipped the helmet over his head.

"Then hop in."

* * *

 **I know, I'm awful to leave it there. The chapter was getting too long, though. I swear, for real, we will actually catch up with the prologue in the next one. Cross my heart.**

 **Also, in the spirit of the holidays...be on the lookout at my profile for a special Christmas-themed surprise.**


	11. Chapter 11

_"_ _Get off the bike!" he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it._

 _They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter's guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend._

 _-J.K. Rowling, The Unnamed Harry Potter Prequel_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 11**

* * *

" _Well_ —what do you think?"

Colette hardly heard his question. From the moment the motorcycle had touched on the roof of the manor her companion told her was called 'Kenwood House', she had not been able to take her eyes off the magnificent cityscape below them.

" _C'est magnifique."_

She turned towards him, her cheek dimpled with excitement. Ms. Battancourt's enthusiasm for the view evidently satisfied her new friend, for he grinned and threw his helmet haphazardly in the sidecar and walked over to join her in contemplating it.

"I told you." He settled himself comfortably on the ridge of the building next to her. "Best view in London— _easy._ "

Colette didn't know enough about the relative merits of viewing spots to argue—but she did think _this_ one was marvelous. The entire city of London lay in the distance. She could see the dome of a great cathedral, the Houses of Parliament—the River Thames, and hundreds— _thousands_ of houses, all lit up like fairy lights.

"It's so much bigger than I thought," she murmured, in wonder. "I did not realize how _enormous_ it was."

"All it takes is a different perspective," a light voice murmured in her ear. Colette jumped and turned. The wizard was only about a foot away, observing her taking in the sight of the city. When Colette looked over, he smiled—not the cheeky grin she'd already grown accustomed to, but with a kind of melancholy she thought she recognized.

"I imagine you apparated in, or took a portkey—you never see the _whole_ picture, traveling that way."

He turned his face, following her gaze to the city in the distance.

"I sometimes feel as though wizards _prefer_ not to see the whole picture."

The words were tinged with unexpected bitterness. Colette fidgeted with her reticule, momentarily at a loss.

"I wish I—could've flown a broom in," the girl remarked, lightly, examining her more immediate surroundings—if for no other reason than it gave her an excuse not to keep staring directly at him. "But I suppose—it is not done, these days."

The stranger turned back towards her—smiling once more. She felt a pang of relief at this return to his usual pleasant manner. It was far easier to keep him at arm's length when he was acting this way—this _part_.

The mercurial man he'd been—the one she was beginning to suspect was closer to his true self— _he_ was far harder for Colette to handle. She sat down on the roof, hugging her knees. She could stay here watching the twinkling city for hours.

"Oh, a few wizards and witches will risk it—they'll go high, or use a Disillusionment charm. Besides—if you like flying, Elvira should've been good enough for you." He laughed at the look of confusion on her face and jabbed a thumb at the motorcycle. "That's the bike—her name."

He walked over to it and patted the seat—as if it were a horse. Colette struggled to keep a straight face. She knew she _ought_ to have protested more—but once one got over the noise, the strange contraption really was not _so_ much different from flying a broom. That didn't mean she'd be volunteering that she'd gotten in the sidecar of one to her _parents_ , of course.

"So—you will tell me _the bike's_ name, but not your own."

The smile fell from his lips. Colette's eyes sparkled with mischief—though there was also a glimmer of challenge there. She did not fear retaliation for teasing him—in fact, most of the time she felt quite at ease with this wizard. He had such easy manners, one could almost forget he was exceptionally handsome and that one knew next to nothing about him.

One _almost_ could.

"Awfully impatient, aren't you?" He studied her, coolly. "I thought we were having a good time—"

"I did not come out here for the _view_ — _or_ your company, however pleasant they may be." The wizard mimed an arrow to the heart, but she ignored it and plowed on— "I _came_ because you said we needed solitude to speak frankly, but now—" Colette gestured at the wooded area of the Heath that surrounded them. "—I wonder if there is something _else_ you had in mind. That you thought you might—distract me from my purpose."

His handsome face turned churlish—it made him look far younger, like a boy who has not gotten his way. Colette laughed inwardly. She was sure the imposter was not accustomed to young witches who were not ready and willing to be distracted by his many charms, and he found her insistence on reminding him of the terms of their agreement irritating.

Colette would stay the course—keep her head, no matter how good-looking he thought he was. _She_ knew what she was about.

"Alright, I get the picture—you're very determined. I'm just—" He waved his hand vaguely about his head. "—Working my way up to it, okay?"

"Working your way up to _what_?"

He threw himself down next to her, throwing one languid arm over the edge of the roof-ridge.

"The truth," he answered, a trifle melancholy. "Have no fear, Ms. Battancourt. I'm sure you'll have your answers before the evening's through."

She stared at him a moment, surprised by the abrupt turn in his mood—then a thought occurred, at first silly, but she could not shake it for the life of her—

"Are you _afraid_ to tell me who you are, sir?"

He sat bolt upright—alert, wary—defensive—a near-instant transformation.

"I am _not_ afraid of—"

It was the sight of her bright blue eyes staring up at him, innocently watching, that froze Sirius in his tracks.

He broke off mid-sentence, scowling—cross with himself for the slip. He had been about to say that he was not afraid of _anything,_ but that was laughably untrue—and _she_ was the last person he believed he could fool. He was afraid of _many_ things—true, they were not the conventional sort of boogey men, but they haunted him all the same.

The spot he'd brought her to was one of the many refuges he'd found as a teenager—a place he'd used to hide when life at Grimmauld Place became—too much. Three years gone, he still took comfort in this view of London—far away and dreamlike.

It lent the illusion of _distance_.

"It's nothing to do with fear—precisely," he said, at last, blinking and turning away. "I'm just—more interested in _you_ , that's all."

Sirius could feel her eyes on him. He didn't think for a second Colette Battancourt bought it—as she'd been seeing through him since they'd met, _that_ was no surprise. He cleared his throat and looked back at her.

A pair of limpid blue eyes stared up at him.

"I'm curious about how you managed to get out of the house undetected," Sirius continued, blandly.

She raised one eyebrow, amused.

"You did not think I would make it?" Colette asked, mock-offended.

"I thought you had about a fifty-fifty shot—an even chance." He pulled out the bottle he'd stashed in his coat at the flat and unscrewed the lid. "How'd you pull it off?"

"I followed your suggestion, of course." She watched him take a swig and wrinkled her nose when he held it out to her.

"Not as interesting as what was in my flask last night, I'll confess." He saluted her, with some irony. " _À votre santé._ " Sirius set the bottle down on a narrow ledge, perching it precariously for easy access—lest his new friend change her mind. "What, you mean you found the secret passage that leads down to the kitchen? Oo-la-la—quite a sleuth you are, mademoiselle." He leaned over, propping his chin on the palm of his hand. "I have to admit—I'm impressed."

Colette nodded—and under his hot scrutiny, found herself blushing again, in spite of all her determination not to let him see the truth—that she was scared.

He seemed to read her mind, for his look turned shrewd.

"All this sneaking around—out of door, after hours—and you coming up to me at the party last night—this is all out of the usual way for you, isn't it?"

"What—makes you think that?" she retorted, primly. He snorted.

"Young ladies who go to foreign lands to find a husband on their _mothers' orders_ are generally thought to be _good girls._ "

Her cheeks colored in the moonlight. He had made the last two words sound like an insult—and what's more, she felt the sting of it!

"I don't know what came over me," she admitted. "I suppose it is because I never met a man in—disguise before."

"So—I bring this out in you?" He smiled, wickedly. "Interesting."

"I did not say that!" she snapped back, annoyed. "I merely meant—it was the _situation._ "

"How many _other_ men have you accosted?" Sirius examined his fingernails, taking care not to let her see that he was gauging her reaction out of the corner of his eye. "In disguise or—not?"

Ms. Battancourt decided to take that moment smooth her skirts.

"None," she said, in the direction of her wrinkled flounces.

"Well, there you are."

She looked up—annoyed and embarrassed.

"You like to believe you are the center of all things, _non_?" Colette asked, coldly. "I think you are a very arrogant man."

Sirius was not bothered in the slightest by this aspersion cast on his character. He sat up and tilted his face, smiling at her in the 'dreamy' way that had, in the callow days of his youth, made even the iciest witches' hearts melt.

In this case, the glacier didn't so much as budge.

"You wouldn't be the first to say it—" he remarked, his voice taking on a sardonic tone he vaguely recognized as being unconscious mimicry of Orion. "And after all, your mother _did_ warn you about my type."

"Well, she was quite right—"

"—So you _do_ think there's a connection between arrogance and handsomeness?" He interrupted her, innocently. "In young men, I mean."

All previous blushes paled in comparison with the crimson that now flooded her cheeks. Colette felt a wave of indignation and embarrassment at being caught out so. She opened her mouth to throw another sharp and stinging retort at him—but then she saw the look in his eyes—and at the exact same moment, they both burst out into peels of laughter.

"I'm sorry, it's not _you_ —it's just the look on your face—" He clapped his hands together. "It's _priceless_!"

He had a large, barking laugh that filled the air around them. Not for a second did he seem alarmed that his howling laugh would draw the attention of anyone—it was infectious.

She smothered a giggle with one hand, her embarrassment gone in an instant. His impudence would not have been as easy to forgive in a less _intriguing_ wizard. Colette could not help herself being interested in him—for he was, beneath his dashing exterior—interesting. She had never met someone who was so naturally charismatic—but every so often when she was with him, the mask would slip, and she caught a glimpse of the wild and reckless boy that she was fast becoming certain he _was_.

The boy who was far less sure of himself than he wanted the world to see.

Their laughter petered out slowly, leaving both the young man and woman smiling—cheeks pink.

"How did you _really_ do it?" He scooted a little closer to her, still grinning. All his strange melancholy was gone away—and Colette found herself relieved at that. He was far more dangerous _without_ the mask than he was _with_ it.

"If _you_ are capable of keeping secrets, why can't I?"

He gave her what could only be described as a lethal smile.

"Tell me, mademoiselle— _please,_ if you would be so kind." He bowed from the waist—she smothered another giggle. "I can see you making your way to the kitchen alright—but I can't figure out how you managed to get out of the fireplace—"

"—Because Mrs. Black has enchantments on the Floo jar, which inform her when anyone uses it?"

He did a double take, then nodded. Her smile turned unrepentant and—if she could ever be called wicked, wicked grin.

" _My_ mother does the exact same thing." Colette plunged a hand into her reticule—and pulled out a small, clear bottle filled to the brim with glittering powder. "Which is why I always carry my own."

He was at first shocked—then delighted at this revelation.

"I guess I had you pegged all wrong!" he proclaimed, voice amused. "You aren't a good, well-behaved girl at all—you know _all_ the tricks." He rubbed his hands together, and he wiggled his eyebrows, teasingly. "I bet back in France you sneak out every other night."

"I do not!" she replied, affronted—then smiled once more, mischievously. "Not very often, anyway. If I sneaked out _every_ night, my family would know that I could do it—and that I _wanted_ to."

Her new friend pondered this, stroking his chin like an scholar would.

"Very sound logic," he remarked, dryly. " _I_ see how it is. You're good at _playing_ demure."

"It's a talent I've cultivated," she admitted, pride swelling in her breast. She had never met a boy she thought she could risk confessing that fact to—let alone one who was impressed with it. It was a very heady feeling. "It's useful to sometimes—hold back what you are thinking."

"I've never had much time for it, myself." He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back on the roof. " _I_ prefer the direct approach."

"How far has that gotten you?"

He blew air out of his lips.

"Not very," he said, voice rueful.

Colette laughed—the girl could well imagine. Her expression turned decidedly mischievous.

"I could help you with that."

Sirius looked askance at her.

"What do you think I _need_ help with, exactly, Ms. Battancourt?"

"Not being noticed," she replied, smartly. "And—perhaps with restraining your tongue? I suspect you are the sort of man who is _used_ to making of himself an exhibition."

He tossed his head, annoyed.

"The expression you're looking for is 'spectacle', and I'll have you know I'm the _height_ of restraint."

One once-over of his choice in clothing was all it took to show what she thought of _that_ dubious claim. When Sirius saw where she was looking, he scowled.

"Other people happen to _like_ my jacket," he remarked, moodily. "And my jeans—and boots."

"I think you were better dressed last night."

"What, in that great heavy fur-lined brocaded monstrosity?" he asked, offended. "Do you actually _like_ that sort of thing?"

Colette had to keep herself from bursting out laughing again—he looked horrified at the thought.

"It was very…distinguished," she fibbed, enjoying how offended he seemed by her supposed preference for the Nord's fancy dress robes. "Not like these Muggle clothes of yours, that you are wearing for goodness knows what reason."

"The _reason_ is that we are out in the Muggle world, and anyway—they are my preferred mode of dress and are perfectly—"

Sirius cut himself off, realizing almost too late the danger in continuing to justify his choice in clothing to her. _That_ would be acknowledging that her opinion on what he wore mattered, which of course it _didn't_.

She waved her purse in the general vicinity of his outfit.

"Well _I_ think—you look, in a word— _ridicule_."

"Why?"

"Because you are a wizard," she said, reasonably. "And a wizard should dress as what he _is_."

He opened his mouth to argue—but could evidently think of nothing to say to that, for he shut it again.

Colette smiled, secretly—confident that she'd won a round in their game of verbal sparring and gotten in the last word. He brought out a bold side of her—though she was sure there was a part of her that would always feel a little self-conscious, he was so fearless by comparison, one felt as though very little honestly said would shock him. They sat in comfortable silence, side-by-side, for a few moments—contemplating the stars, until the distant sound of voices in the trees broke into their _tête-à-tête_.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder, at first alarmed by the noise—until he spotted the unmistakeable light of torches being waved about, two hundred yards away. A few Muggle teens on holiday from school, probably smoking and fooling around in the extensive woods of Hampstead Heath.

He stood up and climbed up the chimney, to get a better look—just to be sure.

"Who is it?"

He looked down at her. Colette Battancourt had stood up, and her face betrayed unmistakable anxiety at the distant sounds of revery. The hood of her cloak had fallen off, revealing her hair—which Sirius noted, amused—was done in a stylish, braided up-do, bright green ribbon threaded through it.

"Just some kids—Muggles. They're the only ones who ever come up here at night—apart from the guard down below, in Kenmore House. We're more of a danger to _them_ than they are to _us_." He jumped down from the chimney without warning, startling her. Sirius shot her a sly look. "I like how you've fixed up your hair. Very elegant. Big improvement over how it was done last night."

Colette shrugged her shoulder and affected an expression of utmost disinterest.

"Thank you—that's meant as a compliment, I'm sure," she said, stiffly. "It is—just something I am trying out."

"I take it Mrs. Malfoy did it for you?" He continued, walking around the back to get a better look. "Or do you have a maid? It's obviously not _your_ handiwork."

She clenched her fist, irritated—though why him guessing she couldn't braid her own hair to save her life should bother her, Colette didn't know, precisely.

"Why is it _obviously_ not?" The girl demanded, annoyed. "Why do you think I cannot do my own hair—"

"—If you could do your hair this well _yourself_ , you'd have fixed it up for the party." He stepped back, getting the full picture. "Nah—the way it's all tucked in so neat—this has to be a Narcissa job. These sorts of things are her speciality—"

"—I do not think you know Mrs. Malfoy nearly as well as you say you do," Colette interrupted him, coolly—and she turned her nose up in the air, a fair impression of Narcissa. "And I think you are _most_ disagreeable about her."

Sirius rolled his eyes while she couldn't see.

"What's there to know?" Ms. Battancourt glared with unexpected fierceness, so he threw up his hands—a sign of surrender. "I'm sorry—I know you're staying with her, but I keep forgetting you're chums. You're just—so different." He eyed the hairstyle with newfound suspicion. "I bet she's looking to make you over into a miniature version of herself."

Colette tossed her head.

"She is just—" She hesitated. "—Just trying to _help_ me."

"You don't _need_ any help." His eyes shone with a sudden surge of fierce emotion. Colette colored again—not from embarrassment, this time—but just as quickly the flame in his eyes went out. "At least—not from _her_."

The French girl suddenly found it very difficult to look him directly in the face. They petered out into silence—now a tad more self-conscious on both sides.

"Can I ask you something?" She heard him shift next to her, so she turned her head. He was looking at her, peculiarly. "Something—personal?"

"You may," she answered, still a tad irked from the argument they'd had around the subject of Mrs. Malfoy. "I _may_ not choose to answer."

Sirius nodded—that was fair, she was entitled to that. He examined her a long time, as if she were a riddle he was trying to work out.

"Do you _really_ want to get married?"

She blinked her large blue eyes—even by just the light of the moon, Sirius could see the blueness—and pondered the question.

As she thought about it, she tried—with some difficulty—to ignore the hard stare. After a minute, Colette—biting her lip—answered him.

" _Yes_. I do—" Her breath caught in her throat. "—Eventually." Colette fluttered her eyelashes and looked up in his face, now without a hint of sarcasm or irony. "What else is there?"

"Plenty!" The stranger shot back, with a passion than shocked Colette. "You're only—what, _eighteen_?"

"I shall have to marry eventually," Colette pointed out, passing over his rather uncouth mentioning of her age. "If—if my parents think it is better that it is _sooner_ , who am I to argue with them?"

She might've just spewed forth a string of the most filthy language, for the vehemence of his reaction.

"You're only the person who'll actually have to live with _their_ decision!"

"I want children," she continued, sensibly—the words almost more to herself than him. He grimaced, annoyed at her side-stepping his indignant outburst on her behalf. "More than one—perhaps a few." Colette turned to him, lips turned up in a sad smile. "You see, I had no brothers or sisters, and I always wished for them."

He threw himself back down on the edge of the roof with a cynical laugh.

"Believe me, they're _vastly_ overrated," her companion muttered.

Smoothing the skirts of her robes, she settled back down on the roof next to him. Colette eyed the imposter, curiously. He so _rarely_ volunteered anything about himself unprompted—

—She must've touched a nerve.

"How many do you have?" Colette asked, her voice knowing. At this question, he ran his fingers through his hair.

"Just one—" He rolled his eyes good-naturedly at the thought of the sibling in question. "He's _enough_ , though."

"And does _he_ think you are as disagreeable as you seem to think _him_?"

"No—he thinks I'm far _worse_ ," he admitted, with a laugh. "Okay, fine—so you want children."

Sirius thought of Lily, and her repeated dismal attempts to knit a baby-sized mitten. Failure hadn't kept her from trying, or being excited at her incremental improvements in her technique—birds were so _strange_ about babies. He was excited about his godchild, sure—but he wasn't going barking mad and filling up his flat with tiny and deformed wool _socks_.

"That makes sense, I guess—most girls do. But you _can't_ tell me you're excited at their prospective father being some bloke your _parents_ picked out for you."

The witch frowned. When it was put _that_ way, her situation did seem rather—flat.

"This is how things are done in my family and—anyway, _Maman_ and _Père_ are my _parents_ ," she emphasized the word. "They only want want what is _best_ for me."

"Just because they _think_ it's best for you, doesn't mean it _is._ " He turned up his lip and dug his hands hard into the pockets of his jacket, looking cynical. "And anyway—them being your parents doesn't mean much. Having children doesn't make _most_ people any less self-interested."

Colette instantly saw red. Who was _he_ to say such things about her family, her parents, their way of life?

"Well, my _mother_ feels very strongly about it—so that should be quite enough for _you_!" She scrambled to her feet, wobbling on the uneven eaves of the roof—he rose and caught her arm to steady her, but Colette jerked it out of his grip. "I have never been so insulted in all my life! How dare you call my—you should be taken out in the street—"

She broke off into a series of more violent French exclamations, as her English was apparently limited to the polite words one could call a gentleman with impunity.

Sirius threw up his hands—he'd known the second he'd tossed off those thoughtless words they'd be received poorly, but he had not expected the girl to lose her temper like _this_. The Colette Battancourt in front of him was spitting mad, far angrier than he'd seen her—and not in the affected, missish way of a girl in the ballroom surrounded by society, acting prim and offended when the situation merited it.

She was very defensive of her family—or perhaps of herself, for sticking by them.

His defensive gesture only made her raise her wand.

"Hey, hey, hey—calm down, now—I wasn't _insulting_ anyone. Don't get your back up—" He soothed. Ms. Battancourt lowered her weapon, but she continued to glare at him, eyes blazing. Attempting to charm a smile out of her, he picked his bottle of liqueur back up and handed it out to Colette. She stared at it with deep distrust—then back at his face.

"…How about a peace offering?"

"I already told you I did not want any!" Colette snapped, her voice peevish. He sloshed the bottle in front of her and bobbed his head in motion with it, playfully. Against all better judgement, the girl's resolve broke, and her lips turned up in an involuntary smile.

"Please have a drink—if only for my sake." She wrinkled her nose and sniffed. "It's not strong stuff—but it will do _wonders_ for softening you in your agitated state, and I fear _that_ is the only way you'll find it in your heart to forgive me."

"Oh, well—" He looked so forlorn, and even though she knew the rapscallion was faking it entirely, it had an arresting effect on her 'soft heart'. Colette snatched the bottle from his hand. " _Fine._ I shall—try a little." The girl glared suspiciously at him. " _Just_ a little."

She took a cautious sip. It was sweet, and he was right—the effect of warming her chest was near-instant.

"I'm sorry I offended you," Sirius said, taking the bottle back and drinking a little himself. She 'hmmed' in the back of her throat and glared in the opposite direction.

"I'm really not trying to—judge you. Or suggest your parents don't—think they're doing you a favor. It's just—" Sirius stopped himself. "That is—I just want to understand."

"I do not see what confuses you so," she said, stiffly. "Such arrangements happen all the time."

"It's not the marriage that's baffling—it's you _agreeing_ to it without, apparently, a second thought."

At _this_ impertinence, she whipped her head around.

"Who are _you_ to say that I have never had a second thought about it, hm?" She jabbed him in the chest. "For your information, _monsieur_ , I have considered the matter very carefully." She waved her wand at him—he seemed less fearful than bemused by the action (did he think her too well-bred to curse him? Ha!) which only wound Colette up more. He was so maddening! "—And if it is not—the—the grandest dream, or perhaps everything I would have ever wished for—well, it is my decision and you have no…"

Realizing her slip—what she had admitted to him—Colette trailed off, weakly.

A knowing smile spread over his face. She grabbed the bottle back and took another drink—this time instead of the dainty sip, a far sloppier swig. It took all Sirius's self-control not to laugh as some dribbled inelegantly down her chin.

"Hey—easy there. Pace yourself." He gently pried the bottle from her grip. "We don't want you losing your head."

"I am not in danger of losing my _anything_. I can handle a glass or—two." She hiccuped, right on cue. "Of port, or whatever that is."

"Yeah, you look like a real hard drinker, Ms. Battancourt," He leaned back and gave her an appraising look. "You're so small a light breeze would probably carry you off."

Colette harrumphed. She was not _that_ petite—but she supposed that, as he was over half a foot taller than she—and certainly more muscular, a fact she only knew because of his utterly unsuitable Muggle clothing, which left little of his frame to the imagination, as robes would've—she probably seemed quite dainty.

"You know, you can admit it to _me_ —even if you can't to your mother and father." He looked over the edge of the bottle, considering her thoughtfully. "Unless you haven't admitted it yet to _yourself_."

"What _precisely_ is it you think I should admit, sir?"

"That you're only doing this to please _them_ —" he replied, flatly, taking a swig. "That you have thoughts and ideas that are your _own_ , and not _theirs_."

He waited, steeling himself for another tirade—but it didn't come. When he turned his head to look at her, he found those blue eyes watching him thoughtfully—considering the meaning of his words with a frankness that he found a tad disconcerting.

"What does it matter to _you_ what I think?" Ms. Battancourt asked, quietly. "Or what I do—who I marry?" She leaned forward, suddenly—and to her surprise—and amusement—he was so surprised by the action he bumped his head against the side of the roof. "Why should you care at all?"

"It doesn't—I mean, I _don't_ —not really." He cleared his throat. "That is—I have my _opinions_ , of course."

"And what are they?" She hiccuped again—embarrassed, Colette pulled a little handkerchief from her reticule and delicately stifled another cough. "Do not hold back now. What is it you think?"

She threw the silk article down on her lap, fully expecting him to throw off one of his usual silly, flippant little lines—but he didn't.

"That you haven't thought all this through," her companion told her, his voice gentle—but serious. "And if you did—you'd realize—it's not what you want."

His look was so intense—his words so sure—that she blushed.

"I…do not know what you're talking about," Colette said, looking away. She caught a glimpse of his smile of recognition before she turned her head.

"Alright—for the sake of argument, let's puzzle this out—together." He sat up and crossed his legs underneath him. "This life you're imagining—this _marriage by parental decree_ you're so dead-set on." She tilted her head, giving him permission to go on with his impertinent speech, though her cheeks were still rosy—less from embarrassment than from the warm drink spreading from her chest to her arms and legs, which were now tingling pleasantly. She was very curious where he was going with all this. "Your two top contenders are Rabastan Lestrange and—who was it, again—Regulus Black?"

He knew full-well who the second person was, Colette thought, frowning—but she nodded. Her friend let out a low whistle, but refrained from commenting directly on her options—though she read his opinion well enough in his face to let out a little huff—a sound he promptly ignored.

"Now, tell me _honestly_ —" He paused for effect. "Does the thought of marriage to _either_ of them excite you in the _slightest_?"

The girl bit her lip, resting her chin on both hands in the manner of a girl in thoughtful repose—Sirius couldn't believe it—she was actually _thinking_ about it!

 _That answers_ that _question._

It only took her about fifteen seconds to come to the same conclusion.

"No," she answered, baldly. "But—I don't think marriage is _supposed_ to be about excitement."

"Well, the way you're going about it, it isn't!" Sirius exclaimed, annoyed. On impulse he decided, to try a different approach. "I mean—if you had your pick between the two, which would you _prefer_ as a husband?"

"Oh, Regulus Black, I think," Colette said, automatically. "I should _definitely_ prefer him."

She could see at once that he did not like her answer one bit—though she couldn't imagine why her preferring Regulus over Rabastan should bother him, since he seemed to hold them both in such low esteem.

"That was a quick response!" Sirius said, unmistakable annoyance creeping into his voice. "Why? I suppose it's because he's coming into more gold—will have a larger estate—"

" _Non_ —I do not care anything for money!" she interrupted him, sharply. Taken aback, he smiled—and held the bottle out to her again. Colette hesitated—and then closed her hand around the neck of the bottle and tugged it out of his hand again. "He is just—my mother's preferred choice. And he is younger, a little—less intimidating—and…"

Colette looked down at the bottle in her hand, then up at her companion—whose handsome face was fixed in an expression of sincere expectation.

"…And he seems like he'd be easier to _bully_ ," she admitted, in a small voice.

Sirius stared at her, not quite sure if he'd heard right—but when he saw the sheepish, embarrassed smile on Colette Battancourt's face when she realized she'd worked up the nerve to say what she'd been thinking, he laughed. After a moment—and when she realized he was not laughing at her—her grin broadened.

"Is that _high_ on your list of requirements for a prospective husband, Ms. Battancourt?" he asked, delighted. "I'm not saying you're _wrong_ in your assessment, but it's not—a typical trait I hear a high premium placed on, as far as the _marriage market_ goes."

"Well, it seems to be a quality my _mother_ values," she replied, tartly, still staring down at the half-empty bottle. "Though she has never—confided this to me. I can—can tell."

The laughter died in his face as he realized the implication of Colette's words. Sirius watched the girl tap the bottle, playing with the peeling label, with her index finger.

 _In Vino Veritas, eh?_

Sirius gently plucked the bottle from her hand and stashed it back in his coat.

"Of course, you still have the same problem."

She looked up from her lap.

"What problem?"

"The prospective mother-in-law, of course." He raised an eyebrow, the ghost of a laugh still on his face. "Now that you've spent some time with her you understand better what I meant."

She sniffed. Really, he could vex her like no one else.

"Just as you are _wrong_ about Narcissa, you are _wrong_ about her aunt," Colette told him—and her prim manner made him smile. "I do not think _Madame_ Black is nearly so—"

"—'Black as I paint her'?" he supplied, innocently. Colette curled her legs up to her chest and hugged them closer. He pulled out his wand, and with a wave, conjured a strong blue flame in the palm of his hand, which he gently deposited in a small glass jar he extracted from his coat. She warmed her hands on it, appreciatively. "You've never seen her angry, miss. She's got the worst temper of any matron in this country by a mile. It's a sight to behold."

"I assume you speak from _experience_ ," Colette replied, dryly. "I wonder what you did, to provoke her so?"

Rather than answer this loaded question, he ducked his head down and rifled around in his bag. After a moment he pulled out the packet of crisps and shoved them unceremoniously into her hands. The girl looked down at the packet, confused—then up at him.

"Have a crisp." He ripped the top off the packet and held it out. Colette eyed it with suspicion—the packaging was so garish and inelegant, it screamed 'Muggle contraband'.

"Why?"

"They're good." He grabbed one himself and shoved it in his mouth, chewing to illustrate this fact. "And they'll soak up that muscatel you've imbibed and sober you, so you'll stop asking me such _cheeky_ questions."

Her cheek dimpled, and the witch stuck her hand in the bag and pulled out a hearty handful, flashing him a saucy look as she did so. It occurred to Sirius that this girl had more natural talent for 'the game' than she realized—she could probably learn to play it very well, if she put her mind to it, and get whatever rich and well-born husband she wanted.

He didn't like the thought of _that_ at all.

"So—your mum and dad." Her back stiffened—he cleared his throat but continued, though very cautiously. "I guess…they were matched up by your grandparents."

"Of course," Colette said, sounding a little like she was getting a cold. "Just like everyone in our family."

"And are _they_ happy, Ms. Battancourt?" he pressed, gently. She let out a little sigh.

"They are—they are _well enough_." She suddenly seemed very interested in the tiles of the roof. "They are content, they—manage—even though things are not always _easy_ back home."

"Because of the troubles with your father's estate?"

She dropped the crisps bag in shock—luckily he was quick, and caught it before those precious treasures tumbled over the eaves and into the grass below.

"Where did you hear about that?" she asked, incredulous.

"I have my sources." Sirius tapped his forehead with one gloved finger. "Confidential."

This answer did not satisfy her.

" _What_ sources?" Colette demanded, scooting closer to him. "Who dares talk to you about me?"

He smirked—clearly at a private joke. Impossible boy!

"A little birdie— _he_ told me the problem has something to do with you not being able to inherit." Before she even had a chance to answer— "Let me guess—your father's estate is entailed upon the male line, isn't it?"

Her mouth dropped in shock. He plucked the crisp bag from her hands before she let it slip again, and waste the precious bounty inside.

"But—how did you know?"

His expression darkened, almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, I know _all_ about entails. I'm entangled in a battle over one myself." He leaned forward in a confidential manner. "It's a problem we share. They're positively medieval, aren't they?"

She picked at the embroidery on her cloak. Ms. Battancourt peaked up at him, curiosity piqued—what possible problem could he have with an entail? She wondered how many crisps she would have to eat before she could get away asking another 'cheeky question'.

"Well—they have their purposes," Colette said, trying to be fair. "Keeping estates together, securing dynasties—"

"Keeping the rich richer and the freethinkers in line," he muttered, leaning his head back on the roof and propping it up with his hands. "Medieval, like I said. Is _that_ why your mother is pushing the marriage?"

"No—well, not—in part. Even if _Père_ had a son, his allowance was never very great—but we have the farm and that—helps," Colette admitted, softly. " _She_ wanted the entail broken, so that I could inherit the estate—pass it on to any children I have, sons or daughters. It has been the Norman branch of the Battancourt's home for almost two centuries. Unfortunately—"

Colette's voice broke. She had been trying to speak soberly, to keep her emotions in check—this was life, and there was no point in crying over it, as her grandmother was so fond of telling her. What was, was—and though she would never be satisfied reading a story without a just ending, the French girl knew life wasn't always so fair. She could only look forward—with the eminently practical good sense her grandmama had instilled in her—and make the best of things.

She didn't dare look at him, and—to her intense relief—he didn't interrupt.

"Unfortunately—the head of our family, whose _son_ will inherit—he wishes to sell it off when _Père_ is—the family needs the gold, you see. It's very complicated, I'm sure I don't understand all the details of the—financial arrangements," she added, hastily, when she looked up and saw the expression on his face. Her companion was unnaturally still, but his eyes danced with something altogether foreign to her. "But _Maman_ and _Jean_ —that is the head—they quarreled very badly over it all. They had a falling out last year, when I came of age, because she wanted the will to be changed, and needed his permission, which he would not grant. He said it was impossible."

"But what does that have to—"

"— _Some_ people say—that now she wishes me to marry very grandly to—show him up," she said, her voice barely more than whisper. "It is not true, of course, but that is what people—say. I suppose it is because _her_ own family is so very proud, and so she was accustomed to—living in a very different style, that people think that."

He stared at her for a long moment, absorbing the information. Colette waited on baited breath, unsure what would be the next words—for he was far too clever not to have read between the lines of her words.

"There's no shame in poverty, you know—not even the genteel kind."

She blinked—something must've gotten in her dratted eye, for he was handing her a handkerchief.

"I am not ashamed," she said, quietly, taking it and dabbing her eyes. Colette was grateful when he discreetly looked away as she blew her nose.

"What does your father say about all this?" he asked, when she'd finished this unladylike but entirely necessary action.

She crumpled the silk square in her lap and shrugged.

"Oh, _Père_ will usually go along with most things _Maman_ wants. She has a—" Colette flushed. "That is, she can be very—well, he doesn't like to upset her."

He laughed, dolefully.

"Well, has he asked you what _you_ think?"

Colette sighed. Her father—bless him, she knew he loved her, in his own way—but he was not a strong man. Poor Claude! Since the great fight last year she had come to see him more clearly than ever before. Colette did not think he had ever recovered from being a shocking disappointment to his own parents. After all—instead of producing the male heir necessary to keep the estate, he had only managed, with the difficult and ornamental bride they had never much cared for—to give them a single bookish granddaughter. He was a simple man, a country farmer, stuck with a stylish wife unhappy in the country, and a daughter whose only resemblance to him was an inherited tendency to want to avoid argument at all costs.

Neither of them understood her—and though Colette didn't fault them for that, it did make life a trifle—uneasy. But she barely understood _them_ , and as her grandmother always said, one couldn't fault witches and wizards for the failings one shared with them.

"If my _mother_ doesn't care to hear my opinions, you can be sure _Père_ won't ask for them," she laughed, lightly. "I sometimes think he—wonders about it."

"Sounds like quite the brave man, your father," Sirius said, not bothering to mask his sarcasm from her. "I'm getting a clearer picture of your family—and the reason for your distressing views on marriage—by the minute."

Her cheeks colored, but in the absence of any reply to the tart observation, Colette Battancourt fell silent. He sighed and tugged at the glove of his right, pulling it off—and then the second, in quick succession. He was suddenly itching for a cigarette—he always did his best thinking when he had a smoke.

The pieces of the puzzle were all there—it was just the making out the full picture he still had to do.

So—the mother, as far as he could tell, was overbearing and proud, a domineering sort—and having apparently been disappointed in her marriage to this unambitious country squire, now wanted her daughter (how often was this the case!) to have everything she lacked.

If the expression of profound depression on her face was any indication, said daughter wanted none of it.

His inner sense of justice rebelled against this—a story that was true the world over.

"What about you?"

Sirius came out of his stewing over the problem with an abrupt jerk. She was watching him, giving him that disconcerting scrutinizing look that made him feel he was being seen right through. It was disconcerting—uncomfortable, even—but when that heart-shaped face was tilted in his direction, he could not bring himself to resist the urge to meet her clear gaze.

"What about me?"

"Your parents—" Sirius froze. "Are _they_ happy?"

He blinked—momentarily at a loss. It was the last question he'd expected.

"You know—no one has ever asked me that," he said slowly. "I've…I've never really thought about it."

She smiled blithely up at him, as if to say—well, we have plenty of time now.

 _Were_ his parents happy?

Happy was, of course, a relative term—but he would have never used it to describe them. Sirius had always considered their functionality as husband and wife in terms of their effectiveness at teaming up against him. He'd never thought of whether they were happy when they weren't trying to control him or working together to rob him of life's joys.

When he thought of Orion and Walburga—the image that rose in his mind was of the two of them _that_ night, in the flat—standing side-by-side, stately, Victorian, upright—a matched pair, the very model of an ideal pureblood union. They were unsentimental and unaffectionate—even their passions ran cold. He had never so much as seen them shake hands, let alone embrace—or, God forbid, _kiss_ —!

He suddenly remembered what Lucretia had implied the night before about his parents' bedroom habits—" _Every night for four years—!_ "—and Sirius felt his face burn red hot at the very thought of it. It couldn't be true, I mean—this was _them_.

Though—Sirius thought, bleakly, if Orion had thought it was his duty to produce an heir, well…but still. _Every night._

 _You don't do it_ every _night if you aren't enjoying it at least a_ little.

And of course, Walburga had been very flustered and annoyed with Lucretia for bringing it up, even as a joke—a good sign his aunt was hitting pretty damn close to the mark. And who was he to challenge _her_ authority? They never volunteered details about their courtship—for a family as obsessed with its own history as his was, _that_ volume had always been left high on the shelf—one of many forbidden subjects. All he really knew were the bare facts—that his mother had been nearly thirty when she'd married his father—in their family that was considered practically ancient—and that his aunt often hinted Walburga had been the cause of this delay. The latter point was murky, and whenever it was brought up, usually at party events (and sometime between the fourth and fifth glasses of sherry) it invariably lead to vehement denials and Lucretia being told to keep her mouth shut in future. The rest he had pieced together through inference and third-hand sources.

As far as he could tell, the marriage of the two second-cousins had been the idea of one—or maybe both sets of his grandparents, and it had almost entirely been a matter of convenience and expedience. By marrying his mother off to his father, Walburga's not inconsiderable dowry had been kept in the Black family—consolidating her fortune with the heir apparent's, and ensuring that the family did not have to jockey for position for several generations.

He was sure the feelings of the cousins in question were an afterthought.

Orion and Walburga had, as always, done their duty. They weren't _un_ happy—at least not with each other. To their credit—at least, he was willing to give it to them, in this case—when Sirius was growing up, in the early days of his childhood, before he'd gone to school, he'd never seen them show anything but polite courtesy to one another in front of their sons. All arguments, all conflict was handled discreetly—which is why he'd gotten in the early habit of listening at keyholes. It was the only way to find out what was _really_ going on in their family.

But nothing he'd overheard—nothing he'd witnessed—could compare to the scene between them he'd witnessed last night. Once Sirius had gotten over the shock of it, he could admit it was really interesting to see how Walburga spoke to his father when she thought they were alone. He had never seen her lose control with Orion like that—hell, before he ran away she never even used to raise her voice to her husband, now she was fighting with him at the table, getting into public arguments in front of her sisters-in-law—and _his_ behavior had been no less startling.

There had been nothing cold about _that_ passion.

Maybe the years _had_ changed them. It was far easier to think _that_ than that he had fundamentally missed something—that he'd never known it.

That _he_ understood _them_ as well as they did _him_.

The sound of a throat being cleared startled him. Dazed, he shook his head—a pair of bright blue eyes blinked up at him, curiously.

He'd let his mind wander again.

"Well, they're second cousins, he's four years _younger_ than _she_ is, and it was an arranged marriage. Still—" He looked out over the twinkling lights of the city, in the direction of Regent's Park, and smiled, wryly. "I'd say, on the whole—everything taken in the balance—they're far happier than they have any _right_ to be."

He seemed sad again—melancholy, and Colette found she was sorry for having brought the subject up at all.

"So—let me see if I understand your situation correctly." He cleared his throat, and shook his head in a way that reminded Colette irrepressibly of a dog trying to get the water out of his ears. "Your mother wants you to marry well, more or less to prove a point to some irritating relations of yours—and to make herself look better than them, and your father is willing to go along with this to—what, appease her gallic temper?"

This dispassionate summary made Colette's temper flair up.

"That is—that is only what people say, I told you. It is all vicious gossip, nothing more."

She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him.

"I'm sure it is," he said, gently.

For a minute the only sound on the roof was of the crisp bag crinkling when the girl rifled through it with her hand.

"I—just…know how happy it would make her."

Sirius's eyes softened.

"Is that what you want? To make her happy?"

"It's not the _only_ thing, but—I would like to," Colette twisted her bracelet around her wrist. "Sometimes I think—I _know_ I am not the daughter she would have wished for."

"Marrying _well_ is not going to change that," her new friend told her, gently. "And it wouldn't please either of you, in the end. You have to live your life for yourself—not for her, not for anyone else."

Colette handed him the now empty-bag back with a sigh.

"But with no fortune, with no prospects—what other choice do I have?"

"You could strike out on your own."

Colette did a double-take, aghast—of all the shocking things he'd said, this was the most—but he wasn't joking.

"How?"

"Do what _most_ people do, Ms. Battancourt—leave your parents' house and get yourself a job." He snorted at the look of utter bewilderment on her face. "Unless you think you're too good for working."

"I don't think that!" she cried, offended. "But I couldn't! Women in my family don't—work in _professions_." She clasped her face with her gloved hands at the very thought. "What would Maman say?"

He smirked and draped one hand elegantly over the edge of the roof-ridge.

"A mouthful, I'd imagine." His smile broadened at the look of scandalized outrage she gave him. "She would get over it eventually—"

"—You do not know my mother, sir, clearly—"

"—And if she doesn't, well—that's her problem." Colette dropped her hands into her lap. He was giving her one of those intense looks that made her cheeks heat up. "If she can't accept you for who you are—"

"—Who you _say_ I am, you mean," the girl interrupted him, dryly. "A woman who has to get a _job_ because she cannot get herself a husband!"

She clapped her hands over her mouth—but he was laughing at her for her slip.

"My, my—touchy, aren't you, when your female pride is wounded?" he teased, pulling his legs up and resting one hand on his knee. She could see from the light of the flame in the jar his silvery gray eyes danced with mischief. "I said you _shouldn't_ , not that you _couldn't._ Big difference. The point is that you don't really _want_ to marry any of those prats, and you just don't want to admit it because you know it would upset your mum and dad."

Colette opened her mouth, prepared to argue furiously with him—then froze. That knowing look was too much to fight with, so she snapped it shut again, and contented herself with a half-hearted glare.

"What would I—even do?" she sniffed, after another long pause.

She seemed deeply ashamed to be even humoring him in this conversation. Sirius almost laughed again.

"You're a witch, aren't you? You have a head on your shoulders, and arms and legs and a wand that works." She laughed, hollowly. "I'm sure you could get any number of jobs, if you put your mind to it."

"They require references—and skills," She picked at a loose thread on her cloak. "I have neither. I'm not qualified."

"Rubbish. I don't believe you. Everyone is qualified for something. Anyway, didn't you go to school—to Beauxbatons? What was that for, if not to learn magic that you could use to—find employment?"

She stared down at her shoes, suddenly looking glum.

"I only went for the last two years." The boy's face fell, and she continued, hastily. "Battancourt witches are always educated at home, by their mothers—I had to beg them to let me go, and my parents only agreed after several years and under—certain conditions."

Both of his eyebrows flew into his hairline.

"What conditions?" he repeated, sounding utterly bewildered. Colette smiled, sheepishly—she knew that this particular rule of her family's was unusually old-fashioned, even among their social set.

"I was only allowed to socialize with my cousins and—their friends." She shuddered at the thought and drew the cloak around her shoulders, tighter. "And I was not allowed to live in the dormitories, and mix with the—with the rest of the students. I had to board with my grandfather—he is a professor at the school, you see."

"Of what subject?"

Her expression became, if it was possible, even more downcast.

"Numerology." He pulled a face—Colette felt it summarized her own feelings on the subject perfectly. "He is one of the foremost Arithmancists in all of Europe. And he studies alchemy, and is published on many subjects. A very sober and—academic wizard."

Sirius could tell she was sugarcoating it. He had to be a dead bore, and from the pained look on her face thinking about him—probably something worse.

"You had to live with your _grandfather_ while you were in school?" Sirius could hardly think of anything worse. She nodded, slowly, to which he pulled another face. The injustice continued. "That's my _nightmare._ Did you at least make some friends while you were there?"

Another sad shrug.

"Not really. I didn't have much chance for socializing outside of the—my cousins' set, and they all thought me…odd." She stretched out one leg under her skirts—it was falling asleep, and so she missed the profound look of horror on his face. "I did learn some things, at least. Though I was not encouraged in my studies much by _Grandpere_. He—does not believe so much in female education. He was the most opposed of Maman's family to me attending Beauxbatons. If my English grandmama had not stood up for me, I do not think I would have been allowed to go at all."

Sirius stared at her, the full import of this sinking in. It was a grim picture. No friends, a confined life, family that didn't understand her—Colette Battancourt really was a princess in a tower.

And the worst part of it all was that she didn't even seem to realize how put-upon she was.

An irrepressible urge to _fix_ this came over him. Sirius blinked, tried to banish the thought—what could he do to sort out the life of this girl he'd just met?—but it was a stubborn one, and would not be dislodged.

 _I've enough problems of my own, without taking on hers._

He looked down at her. Colette was chewing her lip and staring off in the middle distance, her mind very far away from that roof above London. He was overcome with a sudden need to take her out of herself—if only for a little while.

"Alright. Forget what you think you're qualified for for a moment." He tilted his head down, considering her seriously. "What do you _like_ to do?"

Her cheeks pinked and she stood up.

"Nothing," Colette said, her back turned to him as she stared out over the back side of the the roof. The Muggle children's voices had faded away, but the light from their torches was still faintly visible through the tree-line.

"You liar." She heard the sound of his light steps behind her. "That's not what my birdie tells me. I hear that you are a budding writer—a regular authoress." Colette felt as though her heart had dropped clear into the pit of her stomach. "Apparently you like it _so_ much you even have been known to jot down your inner musings on the backs of napkins or fancy doilies—"

She whirled around, wand out, ready to curse him—and found this time that the laughter in his handsome face was good-natured, not at her expense.

She lowered her wand, more annoyed at herself than anything. It really wasn't fair—when he looked like _that_ , who could stay angry with him for long? No wonder her mother distrusted handsome wizards.

"Who told you that?" she demanded, not bothering to keep her voice down. "Who is this—this _birdie_ of yours, who is telling you all my secrets?"

He leaned one arm against the smoke stack of the house and winked, cheekily.

"I was having dinner with some people and the subject of you came up. And would you believe it, I wasn't even the one who started the conversation." She glowered at him—what nonsense. "See—you're already famous in this country! Everyone wants to know all about you."

"You are feeding me utter rubbish," she shot back, peevishly, shoving her wand back in her robes. It gave her something to do that wasn't looking at his stupid face, with the smug smirk she was sure she'd find there.

"Fine—don't believe me. Doesn't change the fact that I have proof—" He rummaged around in the bag and pulled out an embossed notebook. Colette looked up, and at the sight of the object that he dangled in front of her, tauntingly, her face lost all color. In a flash she had crossed back over to him and snatched it from his hands, looking horrified. She stared from the diary to his face, and when she lifted it, as if to smack him on the chest, he raised his hands to ward off the weapon.

"Before you jump down my throat, you should know—you dropped it on the ground with all those packages, and it ended up in my things by mistake." He made an 'x' over his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to be cursed."

"A likely story," she muttered, suspiciously. "I believe you stole it out of my purse when I was wasn't looking."

He pulled a pretend face of shock and dismay.

"Why would I do _that_ , and not even read a single page?"

"Because you couldn't," Colette shot back, tartly, clutching the book to her chest. "It is charmed so that no one can open it but me."

"And look here—I wasn't even aware!" He smoothed the front of his leather jacket. "That's how respectful I am—I didn't try to sneak a peak." Her companion grinned and took a step toward her.

"So, are you any good?" Sirius asked, feigning casualness.

At this question, the girl's shoulders drooped.

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Well, have you _shown_ it to anyone else?" he pressed, voice impatient. "That's generally the way to find out if it's good or rubbish."

She looked ill at the very thought.

"Of course I haven't."

He looked down at the book, undeniable mischief in his eyes.

"Well—" Colette let out a startled gasp as he yanked the notebook back out of her hands. " _That_ changes tonight." He examined the spine of the book critically. "Right, so I'm going to need you to lift the security spell on this—" He lifted the diary above his head, just out of her reach.

"What do you think—" Colette huffed, jumping on her tip-toes. "Hand that back—!"

" _One paragraph_." Ms. Battancourt dropped back onto the balls of her feet. He lowered the hand clutching the book slowly. "Just one, I swear—one little dramatic recitation—" Colette let out a strangled protest. "—And I'll hand it back over."

The girl chewed her lip, nervously.

"I'm not going to make fun of you," he reassured her, gently. "I really _am_ just interested—and I want to give you my honest opinion. Truly."

She hesitated, until—

"Just one, really?"

"Just one."

"And you won't—laugh?"

"That depends on if I'm meant to or not—" He ran his thumb down the spine of the notebook, thoughtfully. "Do you write comedies or tragedies, Ms. Battancourt?"

"Sometimes I think I don't know the difference," she admitted, her voice soft.

It was one of the saddest things he'd ever heard anyone say—and Sirius found he had no pithy reply that could do it justice, so instead he just held out the journal for her. She raised her right hand—still gripping her rowan-handled wand—and gently tapped the front cover. Instantly it fell open.

He let her take the book out of his hands—in a show of trust Sirius thought rather admirable, given the circumstances.

"I mostly write in French, but—I have been practicing my English—" She thumbed through the pages. Sirius caught glimpses of her neat penmanship—and scribblings in the margins which had been ideas evidently so pressing she did not have the time to perfectly form the words. "I wrote a little something last night."

"Was it about me?" he joked. The girl glanced up at him and rolled her eyes.

"Hardly." Colette had, of course, put a rather extensive entry about him and their encounter in her personal diary, but that was hidden back in her trunk in Grimmauld Place, and she was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing she'd found him interesting enough to write three whole pages on. "I jotted down some—studies of people I saw. Sketches, really."

"Anybody I'd recognize?"

Ms. Battancourt found her place. She gently earmarked the page, and very slowly handed it back to him.

"You tell me."

Sirius looked down at the page. Her handwriting was neat and small—designed to cram as much as possible on the page, though he noticed that she tended to get sloppier at the end of long sentences, as if the ideas were coming out of her mind too fast for the quill to keep up.

His eyes fell on the longest paragraph on the page by far.

He cleared his throat aloud and read,

"' _Tonight_ _I met the most interesting example of a marriage I have ever seen. An old woman and man were engaged in a debate about the size of the ballroom, and whether the number of guests at the party made it appear larger or smaller than it truly was. The wife declared the hall over-crowded, blaming it for the vapors which she said made her on the edge of fainting (I have never seen a heartier lady over sixty in my life, she ate half a duck on a platter right in front of me), while her husband, in between snifters of tokay, wondered aloud why their hosts had not thought to invite more people—perhaps they did not know any others—or at least make the young people dance, to give the impression by constant movement that there were more of guests, for it was a paltry affair indeed._ "

Sirius cleared his throat and looked up to catch the girl's eye—but found she was staring resolutely in the opposite direction, nervously clutching her clasped bag in her lap as she listened to her words being read aloud for the first time by somebody else. Amused, he looked down at the page and, mouth tugging up with an irrepressible smile, continued,

" _Every declaration was followed by a rebuttal, louder than the last—the room was overflowing, it was bare, the hosts were indiscriminate, they had no friends! It became apparent to me after the several minutes of going on in this way, that they were not interested in convincing each other of anything, and were quite enjoying themselves in the exercise, as one would sport. By the fourth cycle, I became convinced the entire thing was rehearsed. This argument seemed to be coordinated like a ballet, with crescendos and dramatic act breaks, meant to entertain passerby as a traveling theatre troop would—which it did, though most people who walked by did not stay for the entire show._ _These two have become my model for marital felicity, for I have never met a pair in such total accord—in thorough agreement of the disagreeableness of the world, and each determined to never let the other forget_ _._ "

There was a long pause after he finished this word recitation. Colette glanced over at him—he was staring hard at the words on the page, mouthing some of what he'd just read.

He looked up at her, their eyes met—and he burst into a wide grin. Her heart sank—no, it was just as she'd feared—he thought it was dreadful and was laughing at her.

"One paragraph—!" Colette blushed and grabbed the book back. "That was what you said, just one—"

"—It would be a crime to read only one, though!" He cut her off, still grinning. "You've nothing to hide, you know—it's brilliant, and I bet your French stuff is even better."

The notebook slipped from her fingers.

"You—you _really_ think so?"

He stooped down on the roof and picked it up, holding it out to her with a flourish of the wrist.

"Yes—it was quite funny—and surprisingly cutting." Colette didn't take the book—she was too busy eying him suspiciously, as if she didn't believe he really liked her story. "You want to be careful that Narcissa doesn't get ahold of it. I'm not sure she'd appreciate her grandparents being described in such, _erm_ —flattering tones."

Colette's mouth fell open open.

"You knew it was—"

"—Pollux and Irma Black?" He laughed. "From the first sentence. I think I've heard them have the same argument. Harping is the only language _they_ understand." Her companion grinned. "Was the narrator supposed to be you?"

She smiled, sheepishly.

"I mean—a little," Colette admitted, with a laugh. "It was—some part of me, anyway."

He liked that part of her, if his admiring look was anything to go by.

"Well, she's _right_ about them doing it for their own entertainment." He flipped through the book, idly. "Do you have more like this? It was a little prosey for my taste, but you have some real talent. An editor, some practice—" He snapped the book shut. "You could make a living with your quill, if you wanted to."

She flushed with pleasure at the compliment and toyed with her necklace.

"You are just—saying that to be polite."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"No, I'm not. I never say _anything_ to be polite—I say things because I _mean_ them." He leaned forward, eyes gleaming intently. "You're clever—and perceptive. _I_ know it firsthand. You're the only one in that ballroom who saw through my disguise without needing a tipoff first." He frowned, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Maybe you could turn these vignettes into short stories—your first step on the way to becoming a first-class writer, famous the world over."

The idea was so ludicrous to her that Colette giggled aloud. What a notion!

"You have quite an imagination, monsieur."

"So do you," he rejoined, dryly. "You just haven't yet learned how to apply it to your own life."

The words cut her like a slap to the face. She swallowed and turned her head away, startled by the sound of her own heart, sped up—like the wings of a thrush against the trap.

"I will confess…" She leaned her head back on the chimney of the roof and stared up into the night sky. The North Star was shining particularly brightly over them. "The idea is—intriguing."

He could hear the caveat in her voice.

"But…?"

"But," she turned her face towards him, smiling sadly. "To me, I think that is _all_ it is—an intriguing notion. Nothing more."

Sirius let out a groan of audible frustration—he found this girl's refusal to budge maddening, and considering the relatives he'd had to put up with his entire life, _that_ was saying something.

"So you _still_ plan on—going through with it?"

She nodded, amused at how affronted he looked at even having to ask. Colette didn't know exactly how to explain it to him. She might not have understood much about the world, but she had seen enough to know what she lacked—and what she wanted.

Perhaps her reasons were not very good. In her heart of hearts, Colette saw that there was something mercenary in her at work—that she was trying to fill an empty corner in her own heart—that children and a vague, insubstantial _idea_ of a man who was, if not a figure of romance, at least of a stronger will than her father—had an appeal far greater than any other ambitions.

Or perhaps she was only eager for escape from her narrow world, and this was the quickest and most expedient path.

But how could he understand? She doubted her companion had ever taken the easy path in his life. He spoke in the way of a man who sees only long horizons—possibilities, and most impressively of all, does not shy from them. She was envious—but also wary.

Those sort of ideas were dangerous—to jump off a cliff meant risking the fall.

"You know, with _my_ plan," he said, voice maddeningly sarcastic. "You could still marry and have children and all that bit, if you _really_ wanted to."

"I do not think any of the young wizards my mother has introduced me to would _approve_ of a wife who has a career."

Colette thought this plain common sense, but her conversational sparring partner guffawed at it.

"So marry someone she doesn't approve of!" he replied, bluntly. "There are plenty of people out there, in the wide world—you might fall in love with any number of them—a fellow writer, an editor." He grinned wickedly at her scandalized expression. "—An adoring fan, perhaps. Maybe _they'd_ rather have a wife who writes novels over one who cooks and does the washing up."

Her blue eyes, normally so mild, flashed with annoyance. What was he talking about? What foolish men would want their wives to be more concerned with a job than children and their home? It was true that domestic concerns had never been her _métier_ , but she had always seen that as a gross fault, not something to celebrate.

"I would—I would never 'fall in love' with someone my mother hadn't approved of first!" Colette exclaimed, clutching her purse.

Sirius rolled his eyes to the heavens—back to this, were they?

"Oh, come on—you read novels, you know that's not how it works." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "You can't control who you fall in love with."

She sniffed, clearly a little affronted at the idea that she had so little self-control.

"Well—I would never— _get involved_ with someone unsuitable. Or at least I would—" He grinned at her, impertinently. "I would take great care to _avoid_ it, in any case."

"You don't know that—unless you're a seer and haven't told me." Colette tossed her head. "Let's say—purely hypothetical—you met a charming, clever wizard who fancied you and just happened to be—" He searched around for a good example of someone that he guessed her mother would find unsuitable. "— _Muggleborn_. What would you do then?"

Her face turned bright red.

"That would _never_ happen."

"It could—it _might_." He laughed. "I notice you haven't answered the question."

"That is because it is _très absurde_ to even suggest it. What would _I_ have in common with such a person?"

He let out a derisive laugh—one that made her blood stir.

"They aren't a different species, you know," he answered her, voice dry. "The only difference between _them_ and _you_ is that their parents don't happen to have magic."

"From where I am sitting that is a rather _large_ difference, sir," she said, airily.

Her reply gave Sirius pause. It seemed inevitable that their conversation would come around to the subject—what conversation didn't, these days?—but he could not help but be a little disappointed.

He could already guess where it was going.

"As you seem offended by my suggestion you might even _associate_ yourself with a Muggleborn—" His haughty tone turned chilly. "I have to ask—where do _you_ stand on the subject of blood, Ms. Battancourt?"

To her credit, Colette seemed quite as much unhappy with the turn in conversation as he was.

"Oh, I—it doesn't seem much worth arguing over," the girl said, in a halting voice. At this answer, he couldn't keep his real feelings in check.

"' _Doesn't seem worth arguing over_ '—?" Sirius repeated, incredulously. "Some people think it's worth _dying_ for, in this country!"

Colette shifted awkwardly. She was torn between her natural desire to avoid conflict with the very unnatural desire he stirred in her to argue. It was like the pull of a magnet—one couldn't resist it when around him.

Argument must follow him around like a black cloud.

"I do not see the point in pretending that all people are the same," the witch replied, in a rare moment of combativeness. "Or that they are all equal. You will no doubt say this makes me a trifle _old-fashioned_ —"

"—I'd use a less delicate word, actually—"

"—But it is how things are done in my family, and have been done, for many generations. And besides—" She hesitated. "I have…I have not seen proof that tells me anything to the contrary would be _better_."

Sirius was tempted to point out that he was fairly certain she had not been looking for evidence that disproved the idea—or, as he suspected, that she had been deliberately avoiding seeing this truth.

She was not beyond rescue yet.

"I thought your country was known for ' _Liberté, égalité, fraternité_ '? Isn't that—the motto of France?" She crinkled her nose. "That was what the Revolution was all about, so I'm told."

" _Those butchers_ are hardly who I would look to as model Frenchmen, sir."

Sirius started, taken aback at her coldness—but of course, he _had_ heard that some French wizards had been swept up in the Revolution, as well as the Muggles, and in a few cases had not even been able to save their lives with magic. The Battancourts were the exact sort of family that probably would have been on the side losing their heads.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and quirked up an eyebrow.

"Do you even _know_ any? I suppose you went to school with loads of Muggleborns and half-bloods."

"Oh, yes—but I would not have…socialized with them." Colette didn't feel it necessary to add that her own feelings on the matter had never been taken into consideration, for with so many cousins surrounding her and ready to send a letter the moment she took a step out of line, she had not been in a position to defy directives from her parents. "I was not _allowed_ to. No one did much mixing, anyway. The half-bloods and the Muggleborns all associated with their own kind."

"How progressive!" he remarked, voice heavy with sarcasm. "I had heard the French were snobs—I guess it only makes sense that a _French pureblood witch_ would be the most abominable example of it."

Her face flushed an unseemly red.

"I am not political, _monsieur,_ you know—and I will remind you that _I_ did not bring this subject up— _you_ did!" Colette pointed out, archly. He put up his hands in apology, and she continued, angrily—though she was clearly more upset with herself for getting drawn into the debate in the first place than she was at him. "I do not generally like to talk about politics—it always makes people cross, and you never convince anyone of anything they don't already believe. It's so tedious."

"Well, it doesn't help that _you_ just parrot what your parents think." He tilted his head. "You should really work on developing your own ideas about the world—and about politics."

Colette scoffed—who was he to tell her anything? He was the height of presumption—and it was _this fact_ alone which helped her ignore the sneaking suspicion she had that the things he said, insolent though they may be, were not entirely untrue.

But it wasn't his place to say them!

"Why should I? When I am married, I shall have a husband I can trust to—keep me informed, and tell me how I should think about political matters," Colette told him, with the absolute certainty of a girl who has been well-taught on such things. "So I see no point in wasting my time developing ideas that might not be—in line with his."

Sirius couldn't resist scoffing—of course that was what she thought about marriage. Just like his mother, God help her!

 _Hopefully you don't marry old Rabastan, then,_ he thought, cynically. _Or you really_ will _end up like Narcissa._

"I guess all I can do is hope your future husband has more of an open mind about all this than _you_ do, Ms. Battancourt."

Colette pursed her lips—but then, her curiosity poked its head, practically egging her on to ask him what _his_ opinions were. She knew they must be dreadful and completely inappropriate, but still—

"You don't—" She lowered her voice, as if she was worried about being overheard, even though they were on top of the roof of a house in the middle of a forest. "You don't _really_ think that those witches and wizards are—just the same, do you?"

He opened his mouth to give her a sharp rejoinder—then saw the look in the girl's eyes.

She genuinely wanted to know what he thought.

"Yes," Sirius said, quietly. "I _really_ do."

She fidgeted and went back to fiddling with her bag. When she bent over her lap, Sirius noticed how Colette's forehead crinkled—as it always did when she was thinking hard. That quizzical expression suited Ms. Battancourt.

She had a good head on her shoulders—and she knew how to use it, in spite of growing up in a world of people who weren't encouraging her to.

"I think you are saying all this just to— _shock_ me." Colette looked up from her lap. "I mean…they aren't of our _order_."

"' _Our order_ '?" Sirius repeated, incredulously. "Putting aside your regrettable use of _that phrase_ , Ms. Battancourt—since when did you and I become a 'we'?" At his sly tone, the girl blushed bright red. "Awfully presumptuous of you. For all you know I'm Muggleborn myself."

"You aren't," she replied, coolly. "You are a pureblood—of _that_ I'm quite sure, _monsieur_."

"How can you be so certain—?"

"—Because only a pureblood wizard would spend _so_ much time and exert _so_ much energy complaining about his own people, rather than doing something to _improve_ them," she answered, smartly. She took a great deal of pleasure in seeing the smug look knocked straight off his face. "And _you_ are certainly as overbearing and high-handed as _most_ that I have known."

Sirius's face flushed. The insults aside—and his ego was surprisingly stung by them—he found himself most annoyed by her suggestion of his indolence. What, somehow it was _his_ responsibility to fix the system, now?

"So—you _admit_ to finding men from your own social class tedious," he replied, recovering quickly from her onslaught.

"I do." She smiled, serenely—her soft eyes twinkled with amusement. "—Just as _you_ admit to being one of them."

It took half a second for Colette's companion to realize that the witch had caught him, completely.

"I did not admit to—that's just—completely not the point of what I was—" She raised both eyebrows in triumph as he continued to sputter incoherences. "I mean, it's beside the—"

Her dimple became more pronounced.

"But I _am_ correct, am I not?"

He grimaced and flopped back down onto the roof.

"Alright, alright—" He pulled his coat around his shoulders, sulkily. "So you _had_ a lucky guess."

"It was not a guess!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I knew you from the first. I could always tell."

"You think so, eh?" He eyed her, skeptically. "You know, I've a friend—brilliant, charming, beautiful—cultured, with good manners. Top of her class at school, Head Girl, even—the brightest witch I know." Colette shivered and wrapped her cloak around her shoulders with a tad more aggression than usual. "And _I_ think that if I introduced you, you'd _never_ be able to tell she's Muggleborn."

She shrugged.

"That is what you say, sir—it is too bad you will never have an opportunity to do so."

"You mean you refuse to meet my friend?"

"Absolutely!" she said, hotly. "It wouldn't—it wouldn't be proper."

He sighed, heavily, and flopped back down on the roof. It hardly seemed worth it to point out how improper this entire situation was—on this point, for whatever reason, she wouldn't budge. Her attitude was the product of too much steady indoctrination, clearly.

"You know who you remind me of sometimes?" Sirius asked her, speaking to the sky above him. "My brother."

Colette would not have needed his earlier comments on the brother in question to know that this was not a complimentary comparison—his tone of voice said it all. She took a few timid steps towards him, then lowered herself gently down beside him again.

"Your _brother_?"

"Yeah—he _also_ has a perfectly good brain and conscience he occasionally disregards so as not to offend his family."

"I do not _ignore_ my conscience," she murmured, silkily, but he ignored this offended muttering. "And my brain works perfectly fine, thank you very much."

"You _are_ a lot like him, when it comes down to it." Abruptly, Sirius sat up and stared, as if he was seeing Colette Battancourt clearly for the first time. He began a checklist, counting on his fingers. "You're both good at hiding what you really think—keeping all the most important things bottled up inside. And by your own admission you're proficient at fooling your parents about what you're actually up to, which is something _he_ excels at. I mean, if there was _one_ person I know who could use being deceptively mild-mannered to their advantage to keep a secret, it'd be—"

He stopped himself mid-sentence.

A look of profound revelation passed over the young man face, and then, just as quickly—a string of foul curses, all directed at himself. Colette shrank back from him, surprised.

"What's the matter?" she asked, faintly alarmed. His repeated banging his forehead with the palm of his hand was quite concerning to the young witch.

"Me! I'm such a bloody idiot, I—" He dragged a hand through his hair, obviously agitated. "I just— _realized_ something that should have been so damn obvious, except as usual I'm too blind to notice what's right in front of my bloody—"

He remembered himself and stopped. The French witch was blinking at him rather owlishly, evidently content to let Sirius insult himself and ramble on incoherently for hours.

"What is it you have been—" She considered her next word carefully. "—Foolish about?"

"Oh, it's—to do with last night." He dropped a hand uselessly to his side. "Remember how I told you I was…meeting someone?" She nodded. "Well, that was sort of—arranged for me, that is—someone gave me the information, but it was secondhand." He turned his head toward the flashing lights in the woods.

"And I _think_ I just figured out who the original source was."

Colette did not reply. They had not yet come back around to the subject of why he had sneaked into Arcturus Black's birthday party, but she had not forgotten it—though the girl was keenly aware that she was not likely to find out the answer to _that_ question by direct means.

"And now that you know—it is a cause for concern?"

"To tell you the truth, I don't know _what_ it means." When he turned back to her, she found she could not read his expression—but there was something stormy in his gray eyes. "Anyway, please forget it. It's nothing, really. Nothing I want you worrying about, anyway."

She wouldn't forget about it—she couldn't, but Colette Battancourt nodded, promising to him that she would at least try.

The distant sound of a church bell struck half-past twelve.

"Listen—" He was back to watching her now, closely. "I know we keep going 'round in circles, with this argument of ours. What if we approached our disagreement from a different angle?"

She leaned forward, resting her chin on her palm, propped on her knee.

"What do you propose?"

"A wager." If she'd been a cat, her ears would have perked up with interest at that. "Remind me—how long are you staying with Mrs. Malfoy, again?"

"We are supposed to be in London until Christmas Eve, then we will return to Wiltshire—I will go back to my auntie's house on Boxing Day. After that…" She shrugged, helplessly. It all depended on what Narcissa decided. If she was not being entertained and meeting eligible bachelors, her mother had ordered she return to Paris for the Battancourt family New Year's celebration to 'try her luck' there.

She rather hoped she wouldn't have to.

"So—a week, give or take." He frowned, thinking about their options, here. "And do you know what you're doing—where she's taking you?"

He stood up again and began pacing up and down the roof in front of her.

"Some parties—we are going to a concert at the Orpheum theater tomorrow, with her husband—" A shadow crossed over her companion's face, but he didn't interrupt—just continued to pace. "And she said on the twenty-third I will meet all their friends at a party—"

Sirius shook his head and tutted— _that_ wouldn't do at all.

"—Well, that settles it, then. I can't allow you to leave England having only experienced it through Narcissa Malfoy's eyes." He tapped his chin, a world of possibilities churning through his mind. "A week—yeah, that's all it will take. A week to show you the real England—to introduce you to all the best people (my friends, of course)—and a week to convince you to give up this arranged marriage business."

She shook her head in astonishment.

" _That_ is the wager you propose?" Colette goggled at him. "You think that is all the time it will take to convince me to upend my life?"

"Hell—give me until Boxing Day. Six days. That's how long it took God to create the Universe, after all." He grinned, then tilted his head—it should have been an obnoxious gesture, but of course, he managed to make it look charming. "What's the matter—afraid I might have a _chance_?"

She breathed in slowly, then out her nose. The alcohol was starting to wear off, and it was giving Colette a slight headache. Either that or his impertinences were simply wearing on her, at last.

"I am not." She fiddled with her dress, suddenly very aware of the lateness of the hour and the impropriety that had marked her entire brief acquaintance with the man standing next to her. "I merely wonder how you think you are going to convince me of such things, when I will be spending all that time with Narcissa."

Sirius's eyes gleamed with the promise of mischief.

"I'll just have to _steal_ you away from her, won't I?"

Colette glared at him—he had an answer for everything! This had been the silliest idea she'd ever had, to agree to come up to this horrible (wonderful, magical) stupid house and sit on the roof in the middle of the night—like some kind of loose woman! Of course, if he'd tried to attack her, she was fully prepared to curse him—but as she only knew one curse, and was in doubt of the efficacy of making his hair grow over his face as a long-term strategy for repelling her companion—it wasn't much comfort.

She had a feeling he had a lot more experience with dueling than she did.

The girl got to her feet—swaying slightly as she got her bearings. Her eyes fell on the ridiculous black motorbike he called 'Elvira'. All at once Colette was struck with the realization that she had _ridden_ in it—in a Muggle vehicle, for the first time in her life!

It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once—like the vertigo she'd gotten from the first broom ride she'd ever taken.

"And if I don't change my mind?" Colette delicately smoothed the creases in her petticoats, watching him from the corner of her eye. "What then?"

Sirius beamed at her—he radiated the kind of confidence this girl had only ever dreamed about, apparently, if her hesitation now was anything to go on.

"Then I shall find you a husband myself," he said, with utmost solemnity—though the mischievous sparkle in his eyes suggested he found that very unlikely. "I give you my word of honor."

She snorted—who knew how much _that_ was worth?

"You're very confident, sir." She stopped adjusting her skirt for the third time and turned her head to him. "What do you get out of this wager, if you win?"

"The satisfaction of having helped a new friend," he replied, sincerely. It had not been the answer Colette had been expecting, and she was momentarily speechless. "Well—how about it? Are you game?"

Ms. Battancourt's expression turned rather haughty.

"I shall—have to think on the matter. De— _deliberate_."

He laughed.

"Think quickly, then. The hour is getting late—you should probably be getting back." He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the glow Big Ben, far in the distance. "And, full disclosure—I'm only going to help you sneak into the house if you _agree_."

It took her only a moment to full comprehend his words.

"But I—I do not _need_ your help! I can—" She looked around, desperately. "I shall apparate back to the Leaky Cauldron, and use the fire to—"

"Floo back into the basement?" he supplied, grinning. "Not going to work. You'll set off the wards. You could get out by that method—but not back in, I'm afraid."

Colette's face drained of color. That had been her entire strategy—her assumption was that he would take her back to the Leaky Cauldron. She became aware, all of a sudden, of how he was apparently on the edge of bursting out laughing—and it occurred to her.

He'd known about the fireplace all along.

"You _did_ trick me—you _wanted_ me to get caught tonight!" Colette pointed one shaking hand at him—he was fighting back a smile.

"I _knew_ it—I knew you were a—a scoundrel of the first order!"

She called the gentleman a few other things in French, which only served to amuse him all the more.

"I confess—there was a point this evening where I _was_ hoping. Good thing I changed my mind, isn't it?" The girl trailed off mid-curse. He brushed some dirt from the leather jacket, not an ounce of shame on his face. "Don't worry—there's more than one way to skin a Niffler. I'll get you back in—we'll just have to be…creative about it."

He pointed his wand at the motorcycle, and it revved to life, the lights turning on of their own accord. Still looking disgruntled, her gaze shifted to the vehicle. Her one ride had not rid Colette of her mild aversion, and she eyed the bike with as much suspicion and distrust as she had the first time she'd seen it.

"Does that thing _actually_ belong to you?"

"What's got you so convinced it doesn't?" He asked, grabbing his helmet from the sidecar. "That's the second time you've accused me of not owning this motorbike—there must be a _reason._ "

She nibbled on her lower lip—clearly considering whether it was wise to admit the truth to him. After a moment of dithering, Colette cleared her throat.

"I got the idea because I—saw a picture of one on the wall in the Blacks' home, and I thought—well, that you might have…requisitioned it from—"

"—You saw one on the—" He broke into his widest grin yet. "—You were creeping around the upstairs bedrooms and made your way into the disreputable _elder son's_ , didn't you?"

Colette tossed her head and shrugged. As if he hadn't done as much—or worse.

"I was just trying to find the door that led to the kitchen!" she exclaimed, in her own defense—as if there _was_ one for sneaking about in places she had no business being. "I didn't mean to— _intrude_ …but once I was in there, it's not as though I could help myself from looking, at least a _little_ bit."

She looked back out over to the city—to the spot where she imagined the house was, thereabouts.

"And what did you discover, Ms. Battancourt?"

His voice was almost _too_ casual.

"Oh—a lot of old pictures, mostly. There was at least one wizard photograph, but I didn't get a good look—and some of those motorbikes. It seemed as though he liked these things so much."

She gestured vaguely at Elvira.

"It was so strange. All untouched—his whole room…I was surprised his parents didn't take the pictures down. They couldn't have _approved_ of them."

When she looked up at him, he was busy tying his satchel to the bag—Colette saw his fingers slip on the strap.

"I'm sure they _didn't_."

"I think…" She hesitated. Colette would have never dared to voice this possibility to Narcissa, but around _him_ , she felt like she could say almost anything. "I think they must miss him, at least a little."

"What—makes you say that?"

He spoke quickly, and his voice sounded—rather odd, as if he were struggling to keep a frog out of his throat.

"Because the bed had been turned—recently. It must've been by Mrs. Black." Her companion's shoulders tensed. "She would not have done _that_ unless she was thinking of him, would she?"

Colette remembered hearing of the English queen who'd had her husband's clothing laid out for him every day for forty years after his death. That was what it had made her think of—a ritual meant to recall the memory of someone long lost.

"I wouldn't be too sure," he replied, in a flat tone. "Things aren't always what they _seem_ with the Blacks."

It was a rather ominous statement, and it hung in the air between them for a moment, before—

"You have very good instincts, you know." He turned towards her, his expression suddenly rather guarded. "About—a lot of things. He did—he _does_ love motorbikes. And he's…just about the only person in this country mad enough to enchant one to fly."

The French girl took a step towards him, aware that she had somehow managed to surprise.

"So then you…you _did_ borrow it?" Colette asked, in a cautious way—she wasn't quite sure why. "From _him_?"

Her companion's strange mood passed—and then his mouth twitched, as if he were trying to fight back a smile.

"She—belongs to who you think she belongs to, yes." He sighed heavily as he slid the helmet over his face. "You're so clever—no pulling the wool over your eyes."

"I knew it!"

She clapped her hands together, delighted—and missed the irony buried in his compliment altogether.

"Come on—you can _crow_ about it on the way. We've got to get you back." He jerked his head towards the bike, his voice and manner at once businesslike and clipped. "Before you turn into a pumpkin on the stroke of one, or whatever it is."

Colette gave him a wry look as she gathered up her things.

"That was on the stroke of _midnight_ , and it was the _carriage_ that was a pumpkin."

As he pulled on his leather gloves, he laughed. The distant sound of the teenagers in the woods had died away completely. Apparently it was late, even for them.

"So she reads Muggle fairy tales," he muttered, quietly. "Ms. Battancourt, our closet subversive."

"Don't think I've forgotten our _other_ agreement," she warned, getting primly into the sidecar again—though this time she let him lead her gallantly by the hand to one of the eaves, which acted as a foothold for her to step into it. "I shall not be making any wagers with you until your debt to me on _that_ score is settled."

Though his helmet muffled it somewhat, she could still make out his boisterous laugh as he climbed onto the seat and revved the engine.

"Oh, don't you worry—the night's not over yet. I'll tell _all_ once we get to Grimmauld Place—" The motorcycle reared back on its wheels—he called out cheerily over the sound of the engine. "—I can't see us being overheard _there_!"

Another engine rev, and they were off and up into the night sky.

* * *

The clock in the hall struck one.

Mrs. Black glanced at it as she glided past, her steps as light and noiseless as they'd been ever since the summer when her mother had forced her to wear a pair of slippers cursed to pinch every time her feet made an indecorous sound.

She had certainly learned the hard way how to not clomp about _that_ July. As much as Walburga had hated Irma for it at that time—and she had gone back to school in the bitterest of dudgeons—the scar remained on her pinkie toe to this day—she could hardly fault her mother for it _now_. Not with how often she needed to make a stealthy approach. It had been a lesson well learned.

Nobody currently residing in Number Twelve would have been able to hear her prowling the halls, even if they _had_ been awake.

The matriarch checked each gas lamp in the hall as she passed—a perfunctory ritual, for she knew she'd not forgotten to turn them down at the stroke of eleven sharp, as she always did. Mrs. Black was still dressed in her dinner things, having spent the previous two hours waiting—in vain, it would turn out—for Mr. Black to barge in, demanding rightful entry to his bed. Truthfully, she'd been counting on it—how _else_ was she to pick up where they'd left off in the argument her dratted husband had so abruptly fled from?

Two hours of escalating frustration later, and she'd had no choice but to leave her post and seek out what would not come to her.

This checking the lamps business gave her an excuse to walk past the study and see if her husband was still awake and easy prey. As long as there was a light on inside, she had free reign to come in on some pretense or other—since he was forcing her to attend to his father, the Christmas preparations would be a suitable excuse—and after a few minutes wrangling over _that_ , they could get back to the matter at hand.

Namely, what was to be done about their son.

Of course, the light that bespoke his presence did not pour out from the crack under the door. Her eyes narrowed on the spot. No, Orion knew her too well—he'd have guessed she'd be too stubborn to leave her room unless absolutely pressed, and had probably skulked to the interior dressing room an hour earlier.

The coward's retreat.

Walburga traced her hand over the subtle carving on the door to his study. It was of the family crest and motto, and one of the newer additions to the house. She had had it done for him—a gift, for their fifth wedding anniversary. That had been right after Sirius was born. He had been so pleased with the boy—everyone was. Even Mama and Papa had been happy, for once. Only a few months old, and he was already showing signs of great magic.

He'd even told her he wanted to try for another.

At these remembrances of happier times, Mrs. Black curled her hand into a fist and yanked it away from the door. She stared down, and realized after a moment of furious blinking—there must be dust in here, to have made her eyes cloud over—that her fingers were trembling.

 _Damn_ him.

Walburga hoped the dratted man was having as miserable and sleepless a night as she was.

She turned away from the door, furious at herself for her infernal weakness. Walburga pushed aside the treacherous sensation of having been wounded by Orion, after his cold pronouncement that a second night away from her was not only acceptable—but his desire. Between the two of them, _she_ had always been the one to do the refusing—and Walburga had discovered she did not particularly enjoy being on the receiving end of a rejection—particularly when it came from one of the men in her family.

Perhaps their firstborn took after his father in ways she hadn't even realized.

Another irksome thought to be pondered—she frowned at the snoozing portrait of her great-aunt and marched past it and down the hall, all thoughts of returning to her own bedroom forgotten. It was the fault of the lateness of the hour— _that_ was what to blame for her mind wandering to and fro, like a stumbling drunkard.

Her pace quickened, and she hurtled around the corner and hurried up the staircase to the next floor—her ladylike gliding became something more like the fifteen year old girl with the cursed shoes. Mrs. Black could barely keep herself from sprinting, for she was going to her refuge—the only spot in the house where she could _ever_ have a moment to think—the window-seat in the willow bedroom.

A neglected spot of the house—the smallest bedroom. These days they rarely had so many guests they needed to use it. The willow bedroom had always been where she stayed when she visited Number Twelve as a young girl. She could remember staring out the window for hours on end, always dreaming of being somewhere— _anywhere_ —else.

She flung herself down and scowled out the window at the empty square, lit only by Muggle streetlamp. There would be no rest for her tonight—not until she worked out the problem.

The problem of Sirius Orion.

She closed her eyes tightly to stave off the dull ache in her forehead. A colt who'd slipped the harness and could bolt at any moment— _lassoing_ him was not the worst way to describe what needed to be done.

What a problem he _was_.

A problem that would be far _easier_ dealt with if her husband _gave_ a damn, Walburga thought, unable to resist stewing on her prime resentment of the evening. How dare he make a mockery of her notions, and not even contribute any of his own! Of course…bullheadedly determined though Mrs. Black was, she hadn't really been surprised by Orion's reaction to her proposed plan to marry off the boy. She knew there was something going on between her son and his father—Walburga had a dim idea that there always had been, and being thrown together had only exacerbated the natural friction between father and son when the latter was trying to come into his own.

Whatever her husband was holding over their son was clearly the root cause of all this resentment between them. _That_ would have been fine, except that instead of holding him fast and preventing all means of escape, all Orion seemed to be doing was pushing Sirius away with both hands.

She dearly wished they would sort it all out between them—but it seemed her life was to be a string of disappointments on that front.

You might've thought Orion _wanted_ him to run again.

Well, _forget_ Orion—she would do this on her own. Mrs. Black was as determined as ever—and even more sure that her instincts on that first night had been right.

She _must_ find him a wife.

Except…well, she couldn't _quite_ shake off Lucretia's point about how unlikely it was the boy would submit to a… _traditional_ arrangement. Sirius was, above all else, willful—he always had been, and as secretly thrilled as she was at the progress she had made in the past week of reminding her son who he was and where he rightfully belonged, even _her_ motherly esteem could not deny the obvious.

He was _not_ going to walk obediently down the aisle.

Her son was stubborn, and he was difficult—Sirius Orion had a contrarian spirit by nature. It was the paradox of his appeal—he never did what one wanted, and it made the desire to tame him all the more enticing. When two strong wills met, one must always seek to overpower the other.

Walburga could not help admiring his—he had inherited it from _her_ , after all.

But it did pose challenges in the question of a bride. He needed a witch with a light touch, to guide the bridle gently—but firmly. She sighed and rested her forehead on the windowpane. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried in the past. She had attempted several times in Sirius's adolescence to throw him in the company of suitable potential future wives—socializing was natural among the children of good families—but of course after his dreadful sorting mishap, her son acted as if every Slytherin and every pureblood he met had the plague.

The girls were no exception. He never gave them a chance—too stupid, too ugly, too spotty—he'd say those things in earshot of the parents as well as the witches. She had the sense that he understood her intentions precisely, and was finding defects on purpose just to spite her and sabotage her attempts to make a future match for him. Infuriating boy! She could remember more than one night that had ended in screaming and slammed doors.

No, she thought, squeezing her eyelids shut—Lucretia was right. He would not willingly agree to marry just any woman—and not at all if he thought it was _her_ idea, for stubbornness and pride were in his blood. An obstacle—but not an insurmountable one.

And then, of course, there was _Regulus_ —

Walburga's eyes shot open—she shook her head, trying in vain to banish the image of his arm, the flesh torn from it, bleeding onto the floor. No— _no_ , she'd have to think about that later. First, to the most pressing matter at hand—she was only one woman, and she could only focus on one matter at a time. Regulus would have to come second.

Anyway, she thought, tamping down a vague sense of motherly guilt—he was used to it by now.

Walburga lay a hand on her stomach, trying to tamp down the queer fluttering of nausea. She comforted herself—small comfort though it was—that whatever Regulus had—whatever Regulus had gotten himself into, it was well beyond her comprehension—or indeed her _ability_ to change. At least Sirius's problem was one she could actually _amend._

The vague thought that she really ought to check in on both the young females in her charge flitted across her mind—and no sooner had it crossed it, then her eyes saw, out of the blackened window—

Two flashing lights—the source of which was an ugly Muggle contraption, pulling into the square of Grimmauld Place.

Her sharp eyes narrowed. Despite the dim light from the street lamps, it took her only a second to take in the full and dreadful scene. There was a man driving—she couldn't even bear to think of the name of the two-wheeled thing—with his head covered by some sort of bulky mask, and a girl in an attached cart on the side. The man cut the lights and with them, the corrosive black smoke ceased spewing forth from it.

At first she had thought it was only a pair of degenerate Muggles—uncivilized brutes, they _would_ be out at all hours—but then she noticed what the female being helped out of the cart on the side was wearing.

A cloak—it was not _a_ girl, Walburga bolted up, alarmed—it was _the_ girl, climbing out of that strange carriage with the help of a _man_ —

She was with _a mudblood._

Instantly, a wave of anger overtook her—anger at herself, for her total lack of judgement and poor instincts, and anger at Narcissa for having foisted this fast and artful young witch upon her—she pressed her face against the glass and watched in amazement as the girl—there was no mistaking her, not after the hood had slipped off her head—and her low companion brazenly crossed the square and approaching _her_ house.

She had scarcely time to wonder at the mudblood being able to see it, for the man was waving at the side of the building and out of her immediate view—and it didn't take the little imagination Mrs. Black possessed to understand what was happening.

That Battancourt hussy was _actually_ trying to sneak back into _her_ house, and—most insultingly of all—she thought her _Muggle paramour_ would be able to help her do it!

 _That_ thought was almost worse than the illicit rendezvous.

In a second Mrs. Black had apparated to the foyer, had undone the enchantments, pushed open the door—the hinges freshly oiled, so no one would hear it—and glided down the steps, employing her customary lightness of touch.

Walburga heard the sound of whispers from the side of the house, the one gap on the street between buildings, placed there by her ancestors so that their dwelling would not have to touch bricks with the Muggles'. This little idiot clearly thought she was going to scale the wall somehow. Walburga slowed her gait as she approached the corner around which her targets lay in wait—a dead end.

She was going to catch this _filth_ unawares. Colette Battancourt had picked the wrong night to trifle with her—for she was out for blood.

 _"—_ _Plenty of times."_ Mrs. Black caught the snatch end of a sentence, very muffled, as she craned her neck around the edge of the wall. _"Don't worry. I'll make sure you don't fall."_

Walburga could barely contain her snort of contempt at this ill-fated promise. They were lucky they hadn't made it to the wall, for if they _had_ they'd be dodging her curses. The girl asked him something she couldn't quite make out, or demanded it—it was half in French, and when the man actually stopped to laugh before replying (were they going to _banter_ on her doorstep in the middle of the night, the fools?) she lost all semblance of patience.

To hell with waiting.

" _So_ —" Walburga stepped out of the shadows to make her presence known. "— _This_ is where you've been."

The girl's gasp of terror was very satisfying.

"Madame Black—"

"We have enchantments set around the house," Walburga cut her off, coldly. "To prevent people _coming_ and _going_ whenever they please."

The Battancourt chit's face had now drained of all color. The Muggle, meanwhile, froze—you might have thought he was one of those mannequin dummies they stuck in their shop windows.

At least he wasn't _talking_ to her, the Black matriarch thought, viciously.

"I swear, it's not—" The girl sputtered, stupidly. "—What you think—I wasn't—"

"—Gallivanting out in the middle of the night with _filth_?" How dare this little ingrate try to make excuses for herself? "Taking advantage of our hospitality? Shaming yourself and your parents by having a liaison with— _this_?"

From the dim light of her wand she saw clearly that the girl's shoulders had begun to quiver. She turned to gesture at the Muggle for the first time—and found that he had unfrozen and actually had the temerity to step in front of the girl—as if he was capable of protecting her.

She'd known they were slow, but not _this_ idiotic.

"Move out of the way." It was the tone of voice she would have used on an unruly farm animal.

He didn't, though. The brazen man only raised his arms wider. She sneered and raised her wand—Statue of Secrecy be damned, this wretch was attempting to break into the house of her fathers. He would get what he deserved.

"I told you to _move_ , you mudblood _scum_ —"

"—For your information," a pert voice interrupted her, muffled by the ungainly black contraption on his head. "I have it on good authority I have the _finest pedigree_ of any wizard in this country."

Walburga's wand arm froze—then the rest of her body followed suit. She felt her mouth drop in an unseemly manner, vaguely she was aware that the girl standing behind him had gone rigid about the shoulders, but that didn't matter now—she didn't care a _fig_ about the girl, not when he was—not when it was—

There was only one man—no, Walburga corrected herself, fiercely—one _boy_ who would _dare_ speak to her in this way.

Her eyes, which had up until now barely taken in the scum's appearance—she could hardly bring herself to distinguish between _their_ fashions of the best of days—raked over him now. Denim trousers which were far too tight, and a leather jacket uncannily similar to the ridiculous one that she had confiscated a week before, ratty gloves that looked as though they'd been dug out of a rubbish bin—

She could have shrieked with exasperation—for heaven's sake, his wand was sticking out of his belt loop!

Walburga's eyes at last rested on what she could only describe as an upside-down black goldfish bowl.

"What—what is covering your face?"

"A helmet."

An answer that answered—nothing. Her eyes narrowed into slits.

"Remove it."

"Now, I don't think I—"

"—Take that _thing_ off, this _instant_!"

One thing could be said for her firstborn, Walburga thought, as she watched him remove the offensive 'helmet'—when it came to direct orders for immediate action, he _usually_ didn't need telling twice.

 _Usually._

Sirius Orion shook out his dark hair, his expression appropriately grim, considering the circumstances—though she could see quite plainly that beneath that 'brave front' he had mastered putting on for her, the boy was nearly as skittish and shaken-up as the girl shivering behind him. Perhaps even _more so_.

After all, _he_ knew what was coming.

Eyes still trained on her son, she ordered the foolish young witch inside the house—and out of the way, which at this point Mrs. Black thought a greatly undeserved mercy. To Walburga's surprise, even shaking like a leaf as she was, Colette Battancourt did not move to obey any more than her son did. She was about to reiterate the order, sharply, when—even more surprisingly—Sirius Orion did it for her.

"Just—do as she says. It's easier, trust me."

His commanding authority reminded her of her husband. She might've been charmed by it, if she wasn't fed up with the pair of them.

The girl, still looking scared out her wits, rushed past both Sirius and herself and scampered up the stairs behind Walburga, closing the door behind her with a thud.

And leaving her alone with her prey.

 _Well…this feels a bit familiar._

In the dark, Sirius could hardly make out Walburga's face—but he could read her body language and mood well enough.

This was a 'no sudden movements' situation, for sure.

Not exactly how he'd planned the evening to go, everything taken in the balance. Now he was stuck improvising—what was the best approach here?

I mean, from the incensed look of sheer rage on her face, Sirius knew he was facing a lose-lose, bad on all sides outcome—but after the previous night's escapade, he was prepared to make the best of it—at least he knew not to be combative.

 _She_ would like that even less than Orion had.

"So, erm—I guess…" He fumbled around for a point on which to grab hold and disarm her. "I guess—security's gotten a bit better around here."

Joke— _check_. Almost sort of a compliment— _check_. Yeah, he thought, experimentally inching in her direction. That was, erm—alright.

"No, it hasn't."

Eerily calm voice— _check_. Completely unreadable expression— _check_. Not even a hint of a smile.

 _Check._

She wasn't yelling—she was still staring at him. Staring like a snake—one that could strike at any moment. He felt as though he was in a full-body bind.

"But how did you—how did you know we were out here?" Sirius ventured, cautiously. His eyes darted to the gap between her and the walls of the other house—he mentally calculated his chances of making past her before she had time to react.

Then his eyes fell on the wand, still pointed directly at his chest.

 _I'd say that's…less than zero._

"I didn't—I didn't even know she wasn't in the house," Walburga answered him, smoothly. "I happened to be looking out the window, that's all."

Sirius goggled. He found her calm voice damned unsettling.

"What, at one in the morning?" he blurted out, voice incredulous.

He cringed as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Yes. Very lucky, I'd say." He tried inching toward the narrow gap between her and the bricks of Number Eleven—but then his mother raised her wand, and he froze again. "You might've gotten her _in_ , otherwise."

Sirius couldn't help himself—he swore under his breath. _Seriously? Two fucking nights in a row?_

What had he done in a past life to deserve this? He sure as hell hadn't done anything in this one that merited punishment on _that_ level.

"Well—" He lowered his hand to his belt loops, casually laying the right palm on his wand. "I'm sure you—have a lot of questions about…this."

His mother's eyes gleamed in the dark.

"Actually—" Her voice went deadly quiet. "I only have _one_."

"What are you—"

But before he could even get out the question Walburga had turned on her heel and marched back in the direction of the square.

"Hey! Where are you—" Sirius threw one panicked look up at the house, irrationally thinking somehow Orion would hear them—except there were noise muffling charms, and then he realized what Walburga was on a direct collision course with—

"Wait, don't go over _there_ —!"

He sprinted out of the alley after her, but by the time he'd caught up—it was far too late.

The beam of light from his mother's wand shone directly over Elvira the motorcycle.

"What—" She turned her face towards her son. "Is that _horrible thing_ in the middle of the square, Sirius Orion?"

His mouth opened and closed several times before he managed to choke out the words.

"It's a—motorbike."

"A motorbike." He could hear the fury crackling in her voice as she spat out the phrase. "And _who_ does this ' _motorbike'_ belong to, perchance?"

Her son looked furiously between his mother's wand—gripped tightly in her right hand, the arm raised in the aggressive stance of poised attack—and Elvira. If he ran, could he make it in time?

Through the darkness of the square he heard her agitated breathing—huffing and puffing out of her nose, like a dragon about ready to launch a breath of fire over his poor bike and melt it into scrap.

"I belongs to… _me_ …"

For a few seconds she said nothing, then, eyes blazing, she turned back towards it and raised her wand—

Sirius dived in front of his bike with almost as much enthusiasm as he had the girl. Walburga's son pulled his own wand from the makeshift holster in his jeans and, before she could even think of a spell terrible enough to rid the world of the ugly and dirty offense to her eyes, Sirius had swung his right arm, and twisted it into a furious flourish.

A wave of blue light knocked Mrs. Black back a foot—and nearly off her feet entirely.

"Did you—" She sputtered in indignation, recovering her balance quickly. Walburga scowled at her son, who was guarding the wretched thing doggedly, his wand raised—as if he was going to do that again. "Did you just cast a _shield charm_ against me?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures!" Sirius shot back, all fear forgotten in the wake of his adrenaline rush. "I'm protecting my property!"

She hissed like an angry cat.

"Get _out_ of the way—"

"No!" Her son planted his feet firmly on the pavement in front of her target, fully prepared to cast any number of protective charms. "You want to have a go at it, you'll have to _curse_ me."

For a moment it seemed as though Mrs. Black would take her son up on his generous offer. Her wand hand shook—and with a self-control he would not have thought her capable of, Sirius watched Walburga lower it back down to her side.

Still trembling with anger, she struggled to collect herself. She was close to losing it, he was sure—which would have been fine, except it was the middle of the night and the Muggles who'd been her neighbors for thirty years didn't have the benefit of sound-proofing spells on _their_ homes.

But then…the expected screech did not come. Her trembling hand stilled.

"Go back to your flat," she hissed, through gritted teeth. "And take that _filthy thing_ with you."

Sirius dropped his arms to his side, gobsmacked. Walburga was…dusting off her dress, looking completely calm again—though still furious, she had pulled back from the edge with an alacrity he'd never seen from her. He felt—impossibly enough—let down.

 _What an anti-climax._

"You mean you don't want—we're not going to—?"

"It is _late_ , and I am tired," Mrs. Black said, her voice dangerously low and calm. "We will discuss this in the morning. Over breakfast." Her eyes narrowed. "Just _you_ and _I_."

Her son gulped.

"But what—what about the girl?" Sirius took a few cautious steps towards his mother. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Nothing _untoward_ for a chaperone," Mrs. Black said, cold eyes glittering in the dark. "Rest assured—she will be _dealt_ with."

Far from reassuring him, Sirius clutched his stomach—the combination of heavy wine, food and terror might lead to him emptying the contents of his stomach on the pavement, here and now.

His mother took no notice of this. Shrugging carelessly, she continued speaking in a brisk and businesslike tone—ever the busy and industrious pureblood matron.

"Seven o'clock—be dressed and in your sitting room." Her voice turned rather sinister. "Do not even _think_ of being anywhere else."

He wouldn't be dissuaded, now that the shock had worn off. Sirius glanced up at the third floor—the light was on in her bedroom. _Damn._

He looked back down and around at Walburga, and found his mother watching with with dread-inducing cold expectation that always prefigured punishment.

"Just—just leave her alone, okay?" Feeling bold, he took another few steps towards his mother—well within easy reach of her wand. "She didn't—she didn't _do_ anything. None of this was her idea, or fault—hell, she doesn't even know who I—"

"—If I have to tell you to go _one more time_ , Sirius Orion—" Like a cobra strike out of nowhere, her arm seized his and yanked him forward. "—I will go wake your _father_ and bring him out here to have a gander at that monstrosity of yours _._ "

Sirius's face lost all color. He'd instinctively tried to wriggle out of her viselike grip the second she put her hand there—but at _that_ threat he stilled.

"Mum _—_ you _wouldn't."_ Sirius couldn't help pleading with her, even though he knew it was pathetic and useless. "You _know_ if he sees it he's going to have a _conniption_!"

"You can hold court for him out here in the street—" Walburga continued, her face only an inch from his. He was mesmerized by her. "—As you explain to him how long you've been hiding its _existence_ from us."

He yanked his arm out of hers with a furious jerk and stepped back, glaring at her like a poisonous asp. It was the lowest threat she could have leveled—for Orion was the only person in their family who had hated his elder son's fascination with motorcycles even more than _she_ had.

The one thing he could be relied upon to go absolutely _berserk_ over.

The sudden image of a leash and muzzle flashed through Sirius's mind.

"I am _not_ going to warn you again."

Mrs. Black crossed her arms, indicating her impatience. She watched him dither, rocking back and forth on his heels, debating whether it was worth continuing the argument—but not, she was pleased to see, for very long. The threat of bringing his father out here—a threat she had absolutely zero intention of carrying out, incidentally—did the trick, for after a single hopelessly defiant look (she had expected no less) he snatched up the helmet from the pavement and bolted.

Walburga watched her son drive off—no, _slink off_ was more like it, for he didn't even have the nerve to turn the lights on while he was still in the square.

Only when she was sure Sirius Orion was safely away did she turn back to the house—and towards the lit window. Now—to business.

She was going to get some answers.

* * *

"Madame Black, I—truly, I didn't mean—"

"Be _quiet,_ girl!"

Colette, who'd gotten to her feet the moment Mrs. Black entered the room, sank down into the covers and shrank back.

Trembling with shock and terror on the bed, she watched as Mrs. Black bolted the door behind her and put a series of stringent spells on it, sealing them in. In the absence of any order more specific than 'get in the house', the young witch had run straight back to her room, treading lightly to avoid waking up the sleeping portraits—and to alerting anyone else of her shame.

She had briefly entertained packing her trunk—except she felt so sick she couldn't stomach moving, let alone pulling gowns out of the wardrobe.

"Where is the…the…" Colette stumbled over the dreaded word, which she tried to blame on the alcohol and not her great fear of Narcissa's aunt's wrath. "I mean, is he…where _is_ he?"

Ms. Battancourt flinched at the excoriating look her question garnered.

"He's gone," the matron said, shortly. "That's all _you_ need know."

There was warning in the older woman's voice, but Colette was so far down the hole of disgrace, she almost felt she had nothing left to lose.

"What's—going to happen to him?" Colette blurted out. Immediately upon uttering this impertinent question, she covered her mouth with both hands. Mrs. Black glared at her.

"He will be _dealt_ with in time."

Her muttering portended a veiled threat, Colette thought, her eyes widening with fear. Wild scenarios flashed through her head—technically they'd been breaking and entering, hadn't they? Had they—had they actually broken the law? Could he be brought up on charges? Her active imagination and the drink churned about and conjured up the horrifying picture of her companion rotting in a dungeon somewhere.

And all because she couldn't leave well enough alone when he'd asked her to. Colette couldn't let it happen.

"Please, Mrs. Black—it's not that man's fault, not really. It was all _my_ doing, the whole scheme was my idea—" The Black matriarch rounded on her sharply. "I _made_ him take me to that—to that spot. Please don't…do anything _rash_."

She trailed off, wringing her hands in her lap. For a moment Colette thought Madame Black hadn't heard her, for she was staring in such a peculiar way—but then, just as quickly, the formidable witch regained her composure.

"It is foolish of you to waste all this anxiety on _him_ , girl," Walburga snapped. "You'd be better served worrying about _yourself_."

She looked down at the bedspread. Mrs. Black was, of course, entirely right. _She_ was the one who had been caught sneaking into her chaperone's house with a strange man in tow in the middle of the night, and _she_ would pay for it.

The older woman began pacing back and forth in front of the door, like a manic sentry on guard duty. Colette's head bobbed back and forth as she followed the dizzying woman, who had her eyes glued to the floor, and seemed to be mouthing words to herself, deep in thought.

A minute or so after this had begun, and Colette had nearly worked up the nerve to ask if she should begin packing her trunk—when Mrs. Black abruptly stopped pacing. Her head turned sharply in the direction of the girl, her eyes narrowing in on the slim frame.

"Where did you meet that boy?" she demanded, imperiously.

Colette's shoulders went rigid—the frightened rabbit facing down a fox. Her terror was at war with her innate sense of loyalty—for she felt certain answering Mrs. Black's question truthfully was the _last_ thing her new friend would have wanted her to do.

Of course, _he_ wasn't the one actually in the room alone with the woman.

"I…I don't…"

She stammered a few more unintelligible syllables before falling silent once more. Mrs. Black, completely still, sprang forward, inches from Colette's face. The witch jumped and shrank back.

"Let me make myself _plain,_ girl," she murmured, softly. "You will answer _every_ question I ask you completely and truthfully. If you try to lie, I shall know—and you will make things _infinitely_ worse for yourself if you attempt it. Do you understand me?"

The girl managed a feeble nod.

"Good, now—" Mrs. Black pulled back and, eying the French witch keenly, folded her hands in front of her. "One more time. _How did you meet that boy_?"

Not for the first time in her life, Colette cursed her lack of quick-wittedness under pressure. Why had she not prepared a cover story in the event of this happening? _Some story teller I am…_

She tried to improvise a tale less incriminating than the truth, but—her mind was as blank a page as any she'd ever set pen to—and it took only a moment of looking up into Walburga Black's fathomless eyes for her to see that the woman's threats were _not_ empty.

If she were a caught in a lie, it would be the end for her.

"It was last night." Colette took a deep breath to steady her nerves. "At the p-party at—at Malfoy Manor."

Mrs. Black expression went from angry to bewildered in half a second.

"Don't be absurd." She pulled back from Colette. "He—he wasn't _at_ the party. I _told_ you not to lie to me, and the first thing you do is—"

"—I swear to you, Madame Black—I am not lying!" Colette exclaimed, standing up, her voice borderline hysterical. "He _was_ there, only it was not _him_ , exactly. That is—he was in _disguise_ with the— _comment dit-on en anglais?—_ with the…the Polyjuice potion. _"_

It was Madame Black's turn to step backwards. The girl didn't think she'd ever seen a more confused woman in all her life.

"What are you blathering about?" she demanded, aggressively waving her wand about with such force that one of the bed curtains on the four-poster fell on the floor in a heap. "What do you mean 'he was _in_ disguise'? _Who—who_ was he disguised as?"

Colette's lip trembled.

"One of those foreign men we were introduced to—Mr. Svensson."

"'One of those _foreign_ —?'" Mrs. Black repeated, stunned—but Colette could see plainly that if the Black matriarch had found her explanation confusing at first, she _now_ grasped it completely. "Svensson—you don't mean that _Swede_?"

"He was N-norwegian," Colette corrected, timidly—but the nationality of the man in question was hardly Mrs. Black's main concern, if her purpling face was anything to go by.

"Swede, Nord, Finn _, Czech_ —it doesn't make one _whit_ of difference, you silly girl!" she snapped, coldly. She was practically _radiating_ anger. "Clearly that boy is _none_ of them!"

Like a bird of prey, she swiveled her head towards the girl—who flinched.

"Did _he_ tell you all this last night?"

"No—that is, he _did_ , but only after I realized that he…wasn't who he said he was."

Her stomach fluttered at the memory of the imposter's shocked face when she'd told him his French was better than his Norwegian.

Mrs. Black expression now was eerily similar.

"And how, pray tell, did you deduce _that_?" Colette's interrogator demanded, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.

The girl focused her gaze on a spot just above Mrs. Black's left shoulder—the only way she could keep herself from fainting in terror was to not look continuously at the older woman's face.

"When he was standing in that circle with us, I could tell that he understood what we were saying—you and Mrs. Prewett and Narcissa and her _maman_." Mrs. Black's mouth fell open in shock. "I went up to the punch table and…and I told him I _knew_ he was an imposter, and then we went into the corner of the ballroom and…we _spoke_."

The older woman took in this new information swiftly. Each new fact left her more astonished and upended than the last—by the time Colette had finished her paltry explanation, she was convinced she had never seen a more livid person in her life.

"Let me see if I understand you fully." Mrs. Black crossed her arms and scowled down at the young girl. "You recognized that this… _boy_ had sneaked into a respectable party in disguise, posing as someone he was _not_ —and instead of immediately telling one of your elders and betters, you decided to _approach_ the scoundrel instead? Is that the sum of it?"

Colette forced herself to nod twice. The older woman threw her arms up in the air, utterly exasperated.

"Of all the feather-brained notions— _this_ is what comes of witches reading novels!" Mrs. Black scolded her, sneeringly. Colette cringed at the rebuke—surely deserved. "Sakes alive, girl! What if he had been dangerous? Or a low and common thief?"

She blushed hotly.

"He wasn't—I was _sure_ he wasn't."

"If a man doesn't tell you his _real name_ you can never be sure," Mrs. Black said, darkly. "He could have been any _manner_ of scum."

Insane as it was to argue with her chaperone at this crucial stage, Colette couldn't help feeling a tad offended on her friend's behalf—and defensive of herself. He had _not_ been scum—didn't Mrs. Black think she could tell the difference?"

"I'm certain you're right, only—well, he didn't _seem_ low. I thought he was very…that he had good manners, even if they were a little… _forward_." Mrs. Black raised an eyebrow, and Colette pressed on, before she lost her nerve. "He made it out as if it was a game or a—a joke he was playing—and he seemed to _know_ everyone in the ballroom so well, I did not think he could be at all _dangerous_."

This gave Mrs. Black pause. She considered the girl, thoughtfully, before asking—

"What did he _say_ about the people in the ballroom?"

"Only that he wished to avoid detection by them." She shrugged her shoulders, helplessly. "He seemed to think all the Blacks would be _most displeased_ if they knew he had come."

Mrs. Black's eyes rolled to the ceiling.

"They most certainly _would_ have." Walburga rounded on the girl, her eyes fixed shrewdly on Colette's. "Did he tell you _why_ he was behaving in this disgraceful way?"

Colette stared up at her. She felt her courage rising. Mrs. Black was not nearly as angry as she had been led to believe she would be—and she did not want to give all her absent companion's secrets away…not if she didn't have to.

" _Non_ …that is, I _think_ it was to meet someone—but he did not say who it was."

The eagle-eyed stare suggested that Walburga Black didn't believe her _quite_ so ignorant as she claimed, but the matriarch let the question go, for the present.

"What _did_ he say to you, girl?" Madame Black asked her, shrewdly. "You must've spoken about _something_."

"Oh…nothing all that interesting." _This_ answer got her a severe look—not good enough. Mrs. Black knew her friend, so she must've realized that was ridiculous.

"He asked me about my holiday, what brought me to England—and he remarked on the…people in the hall. He wished to amuse me, and—keep me from giving him away."

Technically true—though vague enough to arouse suspicion. Walburga Black snorted at it.

"He rattled off a lot of foolish nonsense, I'm sure—and unflattering observations about all the party guests."

 _Interesting_ nonsense and _amusing_ observations, Colette thought, rebelliously. Mrs. Black read something of these private thoughts in her expression, for her next words were decidedly more pointed than the last.

"You must've found this rogue quite _charming_ ," she drawled, carefully. "If you made plans for an assignation with him the next night."

Colette's cheeks colored—she was guilty of much in this business, but she was not going to own to _that_!

"I did no such thing! I found him to be—rather impertinent, in fact!" she replied, with more indignance than she would have thought herself possible of at this stage in the game. "He had just insulted me when we parted ways, and before _that_ he had not told me anything about who he was, or why he was there, which was all I was interested in."

"So—you approached him and did _all_ this out of _curiosity_."

Mrs. Black clucked her tongue and shook her head disapprovingly. As Colette was so used to this from her own mother, she hardly let the rebuke at her curiosity bother her.

"Truly, Madame Black—I did not think I would _ever_ see him again—and nor did I—I even _want_ to—"

The matron loudly cleared her throat, and Colette realized her mistake—denying her desire to see the imposter was just about the silliest thing she could say, considering Mrs. Black had just caught her traipsing about with him.

Perhaps waiting to be asked direct questions would be the wiser course, here. Colette didn't have long to wait—her chaperone was very keen for information, even though her questions _were_ a little surprising to the girl.

"How did tonight's… _meeting_ come about?" Mrs. Black asked, after another moment of consideration. "If you didn't make plans at the party, how is it you contrived this?"

"This morning he…came into the shop where I was having my robe fitting," she confessed, meekly. "It was all by chance, not design! And then later I bumped into him in the street, when I was coming to meet you for luncheon. When I saw him again I simply could not resist the chance to—to—"

She colored and fell silent again.

"—To find out who this man was," Walburga finished for her, dryly. "Which I _gather_ you have still not yet done."

"How…how do you know?"

She let out a hysterical little laugh.

"You would _not_ be speaking to me in this way if you _had_ , believe me."

Underneath her sternness Colette thought she detected a smidgen of humor in Mrs. Black's tone. The girl frowned— _that_ was the last thing she expected, but there was no time to reflect on it—

"When you saw him again in Diagon Alley—I can only assume he was not disguised _then_ ," she continued, dryly. "It does make me wonder how you _recognized_ him…unless he frequently traipses about masquerading as that clodhopping Nord with the _dull_ face."

Colette frowned—she supposed there was no getting around the part of the story she'd been trying to skirt at all costs.

"Oh, well— _that_ was because he dropped the flask that he had been drinking the Polyjuice potion out of on the cobblestones, and I recognized it—"

A sudden thought struck her, and before she had a chance to consider the wisdom of saying it aloud, she blurted out—

"— _Oh! je vois—_ he must've gotten it back from _Monsieur_ Black last night."

Mrs. Black's reaction was instant—and strong.

"What do you mean—from _Monsieur_ Black?"

The woman advanced on her, aggressively. Her hawklike gaze narrowed in on the girl—who now felt the full power of it, for she had frozen instinctively on the bed, like a rabbit that had been spotted.

"What does my—does _my husband_ know about all of this?" she demanded, forcefully.

Colette paled. It was far too late to cover her blunder, now—Mrs. Black had certainly caught her slip, and she looked, if possible even _more_ astonished.

And more _furious._

"He told me not to speak to anyone…" Colette murmured, weakly—the venom in the look this excuse got her made the girl's blood run cold. Mr. Black had intimidated her very much when he demanded secrecy—but he wasn't here, and his wife was.

And anyway, between them, _she_ was the vastly more frightening of the two.

"What did my husband _say_ to you, girl?" she hissed, through gritted teeth. "And _who_ did he tell you not to speak of?"

Colette shrank down on the bed, as if by making herself look smaller she could also render herself invisible.

"That—that man. The imposter." Mrs. Black's high cheek bones flushed scarlet, and her eyes narrowed into slits. "You see, he—Mr. Black…he _caught_ him."

Mrs. Black's gray eyes widened in shock.

In an instant Colette's hostess had begun her frantic pacing up and down the front of the room once more. The girl watched her—too petrified to speak—until the older woman abruptly stopped and turned her head.

"You will tell me _everything_."

Her voice was _terrifyingly_ calm.

Before she even knew what was happening, Colette was confessing the whole of the night's events to Madame Black in _detail_ —how 'Mr. Svensson' had admitted to Colette he was trying to avoid her husband _particularly_ , how she had pilfered the flask containing his Polyjuice potion and had then given it to Mr. Black against her will—how much later in the night Orion Black had approached her again, now demanding to know if she knew the identity of the imposter and, upon learning she did not, ordering her not to speak of him or their encounter to anyone.

A little prodding on this point, and Colette was forced to concede to Mrs. Black that her husband had not stipulated _any_ exceptions to this order—not even to his _wife_.

The flash of anger on the woman's face made Colette hope she'd already be thrown out of the country by the time it got back to the man that _she_ had been the one to tell Mrs. Black that he had _lied_ to her.

Colette continued, at a rattling pace, speaking of the second encounter in the shop, and later in the alley—and of what she'd learned had happened—that after Mr. Black had caught her companion he had, unbeknownst to anyone else, somehow managed to smuggle the gatecrasher out of the Manor in secret again!

On _this_ point Mrs. Black seemed particularly interested, grilling the girl relentlessly. Once she saw Colette knew nothing of how the two men had done it, the older woman dropped the subject without explanation, her shrewd look suggesting to the girl that she might have her _own_ ideas about how this impossible feat had been achieved.

Mrs. Black clearly understood the situation far better than _she_ did, at any rate.

Somewhat shamefacedly, Colette admitted she'd agreed to meet him outside the Leaky Cauldron that night, spurred on by his refusal to tell her his real name under any other conditions. She also mentioned his strange amusement at her inability to guess who he was, and how it had only made her more curious.

Now she saw Mrs. Black was truly interested—each new revelation, even the most insignificant details, had her hanging on Colette's every word.

How she'd gotten out of the house was, to the older woman, immaterial, but about the flying motorcycle Mrs. Black wanted to know _everything,_ though all descriptions of its abilities and the ways that it had been magically enhanced only seemed to repulse and annoy her ( _"Did you like that horrible thing?" "No, of course not—I only thought it_ was _rather clever of him to enchant it." "Hmph. I suppose. That doesn't make it any less unsuitable."_ )

It was only when they got to the topic of what had been discussed on the roof of Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath that she lost the thread of her story. So many personal confidences had been shared between them up there, and Colette found them painfully embarrassing to recall now, in the harsh reality of lamplight and in the comfort of her own head. How much _harder_ was it to recount such things to the respectable witch who held her fate in her hands and who Colette was now throwing herself on the mercy of!

When she was with him, it was easy to forget the complete lack of propriety she'd shown by speaking in such a familiar way to a strange man. What would her mother say if she found out Colette had been discussing choosing her own husband and—having a career? Associating with Muggleborns?

Lucky for her, she wasn't grilled on the details of their conversation on that roof. Colette had the odd sense Mrs. Black knew that inappropriate subjects had come up without her even confessing to it.

"—But didn't you wonder how he knew all these things about us?" Mrs. Black demanded, after Colette had mumbled a few sentences about the ways that her accomplice had spoken unfavorably of Narcissa. "Not that I'm sure even _half_ of them were true."

"Of course I did!" Colette replied, fiddling with her skirts. "But he told me he was an old friend of a family, and I assumed that was…telling the truth."

The matron let out a snort of impatient disbelief.

"Well, you shouldn't have. 'Friend of the family'—what utter nonsense. He was filling your head with tall tales."

She narrowed her eyes, looking sharper than ever.

"Did he try to… _do_ anything to you?" Mrs. Black asked, pointedly. "Take advantage?"

Colette blushed hotly.

"Not at all," she replied, recovering her primness. "He was—a perfect gentleman. That is how I could tell that he was—well-bred." She nodded her head and added, derisively, "No matter what _he_ says to the contrary, I _could_ tell."

At this, Mrs. Black blinked—mildly surprised—and intrigued. She gestured at the girls face, circling it with her index finger, impatiently.

"Turn around—let me see the back of your head."

Confused, she obeyed, scooting around in the bed so that her back was to the foot. She felt Mrs. Black literally breathing down her neck.

"You _are_ telling the truth." She tapped Colette's shoulder and the girl turned back around, question in her eyes. "Your hair, girl—it is still properly done up. When a man accosts a witch, he inevitably leaves her in a…disheveled state."

Embarrassed at the mere thought, Colette stared down at one of the ornamental pillows on the bed. She wondered if Mrs. Black was speaking from personal experience, but she didn't have the nerve to ask.

"Did you— _like_ him?"

Her head shot up. Mrs. Black was staring at her with the strangest look—very intent, keener than anything she'd ever shown.

But—what a question to be asked! She could only bring herself to gape at her chaperone. Impatient of her fish-faced stupefaction, Mrs. Black sighed loudly.

"I mean, well—you apparently liked him _well enough_ to agree to this idiotic plan."

Colette played with a stray thread on the covers—a nervous habit. When she saw Mrs. Black noticed her pulling the embroidery out of the stitching, she dropped the thread-end back down.

"Yes, I—I suppose that's true."

"Why?"

"I thought he was—amusing." She felt her face flush pink. "Interesting, and…clever—"

"—You said before you found him _impertinent_."

Though Mrs. Black's words were carefully modulated to be as neutral as possible, she still had that oddly expectant look on her face. Colette found it unnerving, so she looked down at the covers again. She noticed that there were little constellations stitched in gold on the coverlet. She traced the pattern that looked like Scorpius. It was exquisite work.

She dearly wished the scorpion would crawl out of the picture and sting her, here and now, if it would get her out of this humiliating conversation.

"Sometimes I… _like_ impertinence," she admitted, softly.

A telltale blush followed this statement. The room fell silent, the only sound the occasional tapping of Mrs. Black's fingernails on one of the carved four-posters. Colette waited for the lecture, for Mrs. Black to summon a fire so that her aunt could be called, for the elf to come and remove her stockings from the laundry so she might be tossed onto the street, for—

"Do you _want_ to see him again?"

She lifted her head up, eyes wide in shock—and then both hands flew to her cheeks. Colette could feel the heat rising off them.

"Mrs. Black—!" she protested, weakly. "I do not—I can't…"

To her amazement, though, the older woman was entirely unsurprised by her charge's embarrassment. If Colette hadn't known better, she would have thought Madame Black seemed _gratified_ by it.

"Well, I suppose that answers _that_ question." Mrs. Black laughed and tilted her head, inspecting the girl with newfound interest. "Did you make arrangements to meet him again, by chance?"

For a moment Colette wondered if this was a trap—or a trick—but then she saw the completely nonplussed look on the woman's face. Feeble protests were not going to be tolerated.

"Not…not formally," she confessed, red-faced. The details of her wager had been one of the many things she'd left out—though they had spoken of it only a half-hour ago, it hadn't occurred to her to confess _that_ , a foolish venture that now seemed as distant as the ocean. Beyond her desire to conceal the embarrassing details of her home life and marriage prospects, the only slim hope Colette was still clinging to was that she might make it out of this audience and country without her reputation _entirely_ in tatters.

She had not the faintest hope of ever actually seeing him again…

… _Did_ she?

What was happening?

"No—" Mrs. Black's brow furrowed. "No, I suppose he'd be waiting for the opportunity. He did say he _wanted_ to, though, didn't he?"

She looked so formidable—and her head was spinning so much from confusion—that Colette could only nod, dumbly.

"I thought so. He seemed quite worried about you, when I sent him on his way—didn't want to leave." The girl pinked. "I thought I might have to prevent him from coming up here to… _defend_ you."

Something swooped in Colette's stomach. She was glad her friend had gotten away—though clearly Mrs. Black had some power over him—but she could not help wishing that he had come up.

He was so naturally daring—she felt sure he could have borne this much better than _she_ could.

Mrs. Black made a noise of derision at the very thought.

"It was a lucky escape, girl." She rolled her eyes. "He knew better than to try my patience—so much the better for you."

Mrs. Black fell into another one of her thoughtful silences. Her charge, who had gone from terror to nausea to simply wishing she could be alone to cry into her pillow in peace, couldn't handle the suspense any longer.

"A-are you going to tell my great-aunt about this?"

Mrs. Black snapped out of her revery and looked back over at Ms. Battancourt—almost as if she'd forgotten she was there.

"What, that I caught you breaking into my house after an evening spent cavorting about London with a strange wizard on his Muggle deathtrap?" Colette, who was dreading her sentence like the fall of the guillotine, nibbled her lip. "I _should_ , of course—"

She paused, her silvery gray eyes suddenly opaque.

"—I'm not going to, though." She gave the girl a haughty look. "And nor will you."

Colette thought her heart must've stopped—or her ears had stopped working.

"But, I don't understand—why not?"

The middle-aged woman let out a rattling sigh.

"Because it might prove rather _embarrassing_ to me—admitting to your aunt that I failed so, as a chaperone." Mrs. Black paused and raised both her eyebrows, her expression and tone taking on an unexpected air of drollery. It was then Colette had an unpleasant prickling feeling, familiar to her, of being about to hear the punchline of a joke.

A joke at her expense.

"—And if she asked me _who_ I caught you with, I don't much fancy telling her it was _my son_."

For a second it seemed as though the entire world had stopped, mid-rotation.

Colette's entire body seized—the witch felt as if she'd been put in a full body-bind. Her intuition had been good—she had an uncanny ability to sense when a blow was coming, a defense mechanism which had made her better at recovering than she might've been, had she not been stealing herself for it.

But in this case, she might has well have been blind-sided by a Muggle lorry.

"Your…you don't mean that man is—is your—your—"

"—My _son_. Sirius Orion—the elder of the two, and I hardly need add, the more _brazen_." The seizing turned abruptly to total limpness. Colette had to grip the bannister to keep herself from sliding off the bed. "I seem to recall you mentioning that man was surprised that you couldn't guess who he was."

A fresh wave of horror rolled over Colette—she went chalk white.

"I hope I don't need to explain _why_ he found it so amusing."

The girl was shaking—with shock, but in short order it was with anger, too. In this moment she thought that was just about the least funny thing she'd ever heard. Mrs. Black tapped her chin with her thumb, expression thoughtful.

"You know—I _did_ think it was odd. When we had dinner with him tonight, Sirius Orion asked quite a few questions about you." Walburga was apparently immune to the effect her words were having on the witch—who was gripping her face, and looking more livid and horrified by the second. "He's never much cared for Narcissa's friends before now, I _did_ think he was unusually curious. Of course—" Her voice turned cold. "—If I'd _known_ you met him last night, I would've realized he had one of his _schemes_ afoot. Certainly my _husband_ did. Orion was furious with him all through dinner—I thought they were going to have it _out_ at the table."

The girl's face went from white to green.

"Now I know the reason _why."_

Colette stopped fighting the losing battle with the slippery silk bed linens—she slouched and bent her head down over her skirts to hide her face. Something had gotten in her eyes, for there was moisture that was dangerously close to spilling out and over her cheeks. The witch tried and failed to muffle the sound of a sob.

Then she felt the pressure of tapping on her arm. When Colette looked up, she was surprised to find Mrs. Black standing over her, holding out a silk square and wearing an expression of exasperated pity.

"Oh—dry your eyes, girl." She thrust a handkerchief into Colette's trembling hand. The girl took and raised it to her face and hastily wiped it. "You wouldn't be the _first witch_ to lose your head over a handsome face."

She blew her nose loudly.

"I did _not_ lose my head to a—to a—"

Colette had meant to only repeat Mrs. Black's word in the form of a denial, but now she had to resist the urge to fill in the blank with a far less savory expression. The older woman's eyes sharpened—through her tears, Colette couldn't quite see the smile that accompanied it.

"So—you _don't_ think my son is handsome, then?"

The girl looked up from her lap, terrified again.

"…I—I didn't say that," Colette muttered, shoving the handkerchief into her lap. "I only meant that I didn't, I mean, that is—"

"—Naturally, I _am_ biased," Walburga cut her off, briskly. "He takes after my husband, after all—everyone says so, anyway." She smiled, proudly. "Don't you think so? It might be a bit more obvious now that it's been—pointed out to you."

Colette opened her lips, but no agreement—not even a polite and cursory murmur. Her mind didn't seem properly connected to her brain.

Mrs. Black then did a rare thing—Colette didn't yet realize how rare, so she would come to see just how uncharacteristic it was of the frankly ruthless matriarch in the days to come.

She comforted her.

"Now, now—don't be _too_ angry with Sirius Orion. He doesn't have any _real_ malice in him—" She sat down on the edge of the bed next to Colette and patted her arm. "Not _most_ of the time, anyway."

The last thing that he'd said before they'd been caught suddenly came back to the girl.

 _"_ _No. I'm not going back on my word. Just—try not to be_ too _angry with me."_

The memory of his voice—good-natured as always, amidst all the other turmoil, softened her. She fiddled with the drenched handkerchief in her lap and let out another dry sob.

"I'm sure he _planned_ on telling you, but found he rather enjoyed stringing his little joke along," Mrs. Black continued, wryly watching the girl dab her face with one of her bedsheets. "He _does_ have a mischievous streak. It gets him into _trouble_."

Mrs. Black sounded so exasperated as she said it that Colette found herself timidly smiling—in spite of everything.

"I—I got the sense," she said, softly.

The rare soft look that had come over the woman disappeared as soon as the younger witch had noticed it. Mrs. Black stood up, looking formidable as ever.

"Rest assured—he _will_ pay for this. I won't have any more of your ridiculous excuses about this all being your fault—it has my son's mark all over it. I'm sure it was all _his_ idea. It was unwise of you to go along with this inane scheme, but I _can_ understand how he persuaded you—" She rolled her eyes—now Colette could see plainly how motherly the exasperation was. "That boy could charm the _scales_ off a _dragon,_ if he put his mind to it."

Colette could hardly deny this fact—so she only nodded, meekly.

"I take it Narcissa knows none of what happened," Mrs. Black said, abruptly changing the subject. "She told me you went to bed before we got back—that's what she _believes_ to be true, I take it?"

Colette murmured a quiet 'yes'. The older woman evidently believed her, for she nodded, satisfied by this. She considered her wayward charge for a long moment. The impressionable Ms. Battancourt had the perplexing sense that—after all of this—Mrs. Black held her in slightly _higher_ esteem than she had this afternoon at the restaurant.

"I think there is quite a _lot_ Sirius Orion said to you that you haven't told me."

Her blue eyes widened in fear, but to her surprise—the matron smiled. It was rather sly and feline and it didn't lessen Colette's anxiety one jot. If anything, it increased it.

"That's good," Mrs. Black continued, approvingly. "A girl should have _some_ secrets—and a backbone. I approve of discretion—within _reason_ , of course."

She let her captive audience mull over this suggestive statement for a moment before she walked over to the window.

"If you wish to see him again—" She continued, and as her back was facing Colette she could only guess at expression the inscrutable lady wore. "—And I imagine you _do_ , if for no other reason than to give him the _dressing down_ he so richly deserves—I will—"

She turned on her heel. She was twirling her wand in her hand with the expertise of a witch who knew her way about the world. Colette watched the action, transfixed.

"—Allow it."

The girl dropped the handkerchief onto the floor.

"Madame Black—!"

"—There will be _conditions_ , naturally," Walburga added, tone brisk and matronly. "I can't allow anything like _this_ to happen again, of course. No more galavanting about on that _thing,_ for one." Her nostrils flared at the thought. "However, _other_ meetings could be… _arranged_."

Ms. Battancourt, who was used to quiet country living, and was therefore currently at her far limit as far as excitement went, didn't have the wherewithal left to protest against her desire for another meeting with Mrs. Black's son, clandestine or not.

Maybe that liquor _really_ had gone to her head. Was she having a drunken episode?

"I don't…I don't understand at _all_ what you mean…"

Mrs. Black's feline smile widened and became something else entirely—serpentine. Whatever she was scheming, it was very clear to the girl, at least, that _her_ understanding—or lack thereof—mattered very little to her chaperone.

"You're not altogether hopeless," she observed, giving the girl a once-over. "You have a chance to make something of yourself—a rare chance—of course, like most silly young girls you could just as _easily_ squander it." She walked up to the end of the bed and leaned over. "You understand _that_ well enough, I'm sure."

Whether she did or not was hard to say. Exhausted and humiliated, Ms. Battancourt looked every bit the part of the petrified mouse, frozen in terror, ready for the cat to strike the final blow and end it. Mrs. Black examined the girl for a long time, carefully considering what would be the best words to put her out her misery.

"Don't you want to make your mother and father _proud_?"

Colette gulped and swallowed. Silvery-gray eyes were the only thing moving in that face, as still as a beautifully carved statue waiting—expectantly. At the mouse hole.

She did the only thing she could think of, then—she nodded.

"Y-yes—of course I do."

The corners of Mrs. Black's lips turned up, and there was a fluttering in Colette's chest. It was an odd feeling, not unlike what she'd felt in that narrow alley so many hours earlier when she'd agreed to meet the young stranger.

No, not a stranger—that was Mrs. Black's _son._

Colette felt—without quite knowing the reason why—that in that moment she had sealed her own fate.

"Good…" The dark-haired woman's smile was pleasant—this answer _pleased_ her. She laid her hand on Colette's shoulder. Mrs. Black's grip was far stronger than the girl had expected it to be. Her fingers were as cold and hard as ivory.

"…Then you'll do _exactly_ as I tell you."

* * *

 **Poor girl.**

 **And thus, another day of drama ends, and we finally see the aftermath of Sirius getting caught breaking into Grimmauld Place. 200k words later. Expect a little hiatus after this—and no chapter to ever again be this long, because this took about 10 hours to edit. Would love to hear your thoughts! Thank you for all the lovely** **comments. They mean a lot.**


	12. Chapter 12

_"_ _Master always liked his little joke," said Kreacher, bowing again, and continuing in an undertone, "Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart—"_

 _"_ _My mother didn't have a heart, Kreacher," Sirius snapped. "She kept herself alive out of pure spite."_

 _\- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 12**

* * *

 ** _December 21st, 1979_**

By the time Sirius had found the _third_ pile of rat droppings in the back of his cupboards, he had pretty well resigned himself to the fact that there was no coffee _anywhere_ to be found in his flat. He was _also_ determined to ask Wormtail, the next time he saw him, if _he_ had been the one to inform the entire Westminster rodent population where the crevices in his walls were—probably as some kind of payback for how much Sirius had blown him off of late.

He could think of no other explanation for this sudden infestation—rats had never been a problem before _now_.

He tossed the dusty biscuit box in a corner and walked back into the sitting room, a black cloud following in his wake. The dining room table, still set up from the night before, lay bare—bar the mug of tea he'd managed to conjure up as an alternative to the desperately needed espresso. _This_ , Sirius thought, staring gloomily down at the ancient tea leaves floating at the bottom of his murky cup, would have to do for nursing his colossal hangover—at least in the short term. He could get something better after.

If there even _was_ an after.

He took his first sip and winced—less from the weak tea than the general pall of doom that hung over his flat this morning. A sudden burst of light flooded into the sitting room and directly in his face. Sirius covered his eyes to block the sunbreak, cursing the heavens under his breath—when he waved his wand, the blinds flew shut with a snap so aggressive that one of them fell off.

Sirius rubbed his temples and sighed. His head was pounding from a combination of booze and the sleepless night he'd endured. Somehow—perhaps miraculously—it had been even _worse_ than the night before.

Sirius had not thought that _possible._

 _"_ _Shit, shit, shit, SHIT—!"_

 _The flat in Lisson Grove was dark when he flung the door open—so hard that he was vaguely aware of having dented the wall, except that didn't matter, nothing else did in this moment—Remus lay on the sofa, illuminated by the flicker of the television set—he looked like he'd fallen asleep, the lucky sod—_

 _"_ _Sirius…is that you?" The tired voice from the sofa called out, and then a head rose, and sleepy eyes blinked in the dark. "Where the_ hell _have you be—?"_

 _Remus's question was cut-short by a set of car keys hurled in his face._

 _"_ _Shut up—there's no_ time _for that now—" He tugged his friend off the couch, forcefully, and began pushing him towards the door. "We have to get her out of here, quickly—up, up—!"_

 _"—_ _Padfoot—it's past one-thirty—what are you on about—"_

 _"—_ _You're going to have to take her and hide her, d'you understand?" Sirius picked Moony's coat off the peg and the wall and began helping him into it. His bewildered and only half-conscious friend allowed him to do this. "We need to find a safe place—how do you fancy flying up to the Outer Hebrides tonight? Or maybe down to Gibraltar?"_

 _"_ _Will you calm down? You look like you're going to empty to contents of your stomach on the floor—"_

 _"_ _No, actually—forget that. Too risky. Don't tell me where you're taking her. Much safer. Then I have plausible deniability—"_

 _"_ _Sirius, who in the name of_ Merlin's bollocks _are you talking about?"_

 _"_ Elvira _, of course, who do you_ think _I mean? Look, I know you said you'd never ride it again, but I've modified her quite a bit since that incident in Leeds, and you wouldn't even be riding pillion this time—"_

 _"'_ _That incident in Leeds'?" Remus repeated, incredulously. "You mean 'that incident' where the sidecar's door fell off and I nearly plunged two hundred feet to my_ death _—"_

 _"_ _We were over a river, Moony! And anyway, you had a wand, you would've been fine—"_

 _"—_ _Why're you back so late?"_

 _Remus and Sirius froze mid-argument and turned their heads towards the door. Regulus, clad in his dark silk pajamas and dressing gown, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching them. His dark hair was slightly mussed, suggesting he'd been trying—probably with little success—to sleep._

 _"_ _Go back to bed, Reg."_

 _"_ _What happened? I thought you were only going to be gone a half hour."_

 _"_ _Plans—changed."_

 _"_ _What plans?"_

 _"_ _Look, it's too late to go into it, alight? Suffice it to say the—operation was successful in…meeting its objectives."_

 _Remus and Regulus exchanged identical looks of surprise._

 _"_ _So…she got caught?" Moony asked, perturbed. "The girl?"_

 _Sirius sighed and ran one hand through his hair._

 _"…_ _Yes. She got caught. I'm sure she'll be—packing her bags first thing in the morning."_

 _Another exchange of confused looks. Considering how optimistic he'd been at the outset of the evening, they'd both expected a little more crowing upon Sirius's return, if the 'mission' truly_ had _been successful._

 _Regulus crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared, suspiciously. His brother sighed again._

 _"_ _Just—go into the bedroom, Reggie. I'll be there in a few minutes—I promise." He looked up from the carpet he'd been staring at and threw his brother a rueful look. "I won't leave you to sleep in there alone, again."_

 _Embarrassed that Sirius had anticipated his refusal to leave until this childish promise had been made, Regulus flushed scarlet in the dark._

 _"_ _I wouldn't care if you did. You can sleep out here on that moldy old sofa, if you want. Just—" Regulus hesitated. "—If you_ are _coming, don't be too long. You're—loud when you come in."_

 _Sirius made a noise of irritated acquiescence. Regulus, satisfied that his brother was safely back in the flat, retreated to their bedroom. Sirius was starting to think of more as his brother's than his own._

 _He turned back to Remus, who was now looking down at the keys which had bounced off his face and into his hands, expression thoughtful._

 _"_ _I know you've already done me more than one favor today—and that you made it crystal clear when I bought the bike you didn't want to ever drive it, but—" Remus looked up—expression suddenly piercing. Sirius was not too proud to beg at this point—but he was counting on Moony's benevolent nature to win the day. "—Can you_ please _do this for me?"_

 _To his surprise—and relief—Remus smiled, with humor._

 _"…_ _That French girl wasn't the_ only _one who got caught tonight by your mother, was she?"_

 _His expression must've answered the question, for the werewolf's smile widened._

 _"_ _You did! Oh, Padfoot. You couldn't resist—you couldn't be the villain." He covered his mouth to smother a grin. "_ Had _to change your mind and play the white knight, instead."_

 _Sirius shoved him, or tried—but Remus, long used to attacks from this quarter, was able to dodge out of the way handily._

 _"_ _Think it's funny, do you? Let me tell you, I will never take pity on any bird ever again. It's not worth this—" Moony only laughed and clasped him affectionately on the shoulder. "—Nothing would be!"_

 _"_ _That bad, was it?"_

 _"_ _I thought she was going to blast it to bloody smithereens! In fact, if there hadn't been Muggles about, she probably would've."_

 _At this description, Remus actually laughed. As Sirius didn't have the energy to keep scowling at him, his face, too, split into a rueful grin. It was too ridiculous—and he was not such a stuffed shirt he couldn't laugh at himself._

 _"_ _She's coming over for breakfast tomorrow, you know—so this may very well be the last favor you ever do for me."_

In the end, curiosity to hear the thrilling tale—as well as the weak will and soft heart of Remus Lupin, where ever denying his friends was concerned—won the day, and, under cover of darkness, Elvira the motorbike was removed from the safety of its spot in the overhang at the back of housing block, to be taken to parts unknown.

At least unknown to the bike's owner, who already felt her absence keenly.

The thought of the audience proved a more vivid nightmare than anything his subconscious could cook up, and Sirius had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in the cot in the bedroom. Regulus had always been a heavy sleeper, so the light, restive breathing from the bed had been a sign to Sirius that his brother was not having a great night, either.

In dread of the inevitable moment in the early hours that Regulus broke the silence between them, just before dawn he grabbed a change of clothes from the closet and quietly slinked out into the hall.

That was how he found himself here, sitting at the dining room table—dressed in a particularly drab set of pale green robes, the one set of his father's cast-offs he'd managed to avoid donning in the past week—back ramrod straight, staring at the clock (hour hand on the seven) as the one marking the minutes slowly inched its way towards the twelve at the top.

 _Twenty seconds…eleven…eight…four…_

Precisely at the stroke of the hour—and without preemptory knock—the front door of the flat opened.

"Good morning, Sirius Orion."

As she crossed the threshold, Sirius clumsily got to his feet.

"Good—morning," he said, his voice subdued. "—ma'am _._ "

Mrs. Black did not appear to notice her son's unusual deference in standing when she entered beyond a short and careless head bob in his direction, indicating without words that he had permission to sit.

Which he did—for once in his life, obediently—and without comment.

Walburga bustled into the flat, her handsome organdy gown peaking out from under a sable-lined cloak, her head adorned with a jaunty beaver-trimmed hat. She bore none of the signs of distress and sleep deprivation which so marked Sirius—she looked quite pretty today, in fact—her natural, queenly bearing enhanced by the particular care she'd taken with both hair and dress. At her right side she carried an enormous hamper—bewitched feather-light, clearly—from which was emanating many familiar and delectable scents.

Chief among them— _coffee._

Sirius's mouth watered at the aroma. He watched Walburga unclasp the ivory buttons of her cloak and hang it on the wall, steeling himself for the worst.

"I hope you slept well."

He made a indistinct sort of noncommittal noise in the back of his throat—she, thankfully, did not press him for a more intelligent answer.

Calmly and methodically, his mother began to set the table—summoning the linen table cloth from the sideboard, and then pulling out one of her day sets of china from the hamper. She waved her wand—Sirius flinched as the silver butter knife flew towards him, but it merely followed the spoon, fork and napkin in a neat row before him on the place setting. Two covered silver trays came next; each landed gently next to the two place settings and were cradled by a silver casing beneath them which held a flame, meant to keep the food hot.

She next pulled out the silver coffee service, cream and sugar bowls, as well as her favorite willow-patterned china cups. Sirius was evidently doing a poor job of hiding his longing, for she surprised him when she looked up from the cup she'd poured and spoke, without preamble:

"Cream or sugar?"

"W-what?"

"I _asked_ if you would you like cream or sugar in your coffee, Sirius Orion," his mother repeated, with only the barest hint of impatience. "It is a simple question—I see no need for you to _gape_ at it."

Sirius closed his mouth and swallowed. His tongue was unbearably dry.

"I—" He nibbled the edge of his lip. "—Neither, please."

He took the cup and saucer with trembling fingers. Walburga returned to the task of setting out the toast and butter dish, seemingly oblivious to the new horrible suspicion her son was directing towards the cup, until—

"That isn't poisoned, you know."

He looked up from the cup, his eyes narrowed.

"Or _laced_ with anything?" Sirius asked—risking getting accusatory with her for the first time since she'd come in.

She gave him one of her set-down looks and lifted the coffee service to pour herself a generous cup—eyes not leaving his face.

"Lace your coffee?" Walburga stirred in a dollop of cream, watching her eldest son with an intently feline expression. "Good gracious—why would _I_ do such a thing?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," her son muttered, darkly.

"It's seven o'clock in the morning, Sirius Orion." She set her spoon down on the edge of the saucer. "I did _not_ put dreamless sleeping draught in your cup, though—" Mrs. Black gave the dark circles around his eyes a critical look. " _Now_ I wonder if I shouldn't have. You don't look as though you slept well _at all_."

Sirius snorted, softly. ' _Didn't look as though he'd slept well'_ —Merlin, why could _that_ have been?

"I've had better nights," he admitted, curtly.

" _Hmph_ —well, better have a nap this afternoon, to catch up," she recommended, her tone placid. " _And_ turn in early this evening. You _do_ need your rest."

He stared down into the murky depths of the cup which wafted so enticingly in his face, the mug of tea all but forgotten. Accusing her of having slipped _Veritaserum_ into the coffee or food was a dangerous proposition. She was calm _now_ , but there was no telling what would set her off.

Better not give Walburga an excuse to repeat last night's scene. He sincerely doubted she gave a damn about disturbing his flat neighbors in the wee hours of the morning by keeping the screaming down.

Rather theatrically, Mrs. Black raised the cup to her lips and—eyes bright and scathing—took an altogether louder sip than she might have, if she was not doing so to illustrate that the coffee was indeed safe to drink. Sirius grudgingly followed suit. It was strong and dark, and upon drinking it, he immediately felt more human.

The two trays of food remained hidden by their silver-plated domes. Sirius was wise enough to know that he should not try to lift his without express permission.

His mother took another sip from her coffee cup.

"Where is it?" Walburga asked, casually, over the rim.

A light, pleasant question—with the unmistakeable air of menace lurking just below the surface.

There _it is_.

"Where's _what_?"

Her smile became poisonously sweet.

"You know _precisely_ what I am referring to, Sirius Orion." The silver teaspoon tapped eerily against the gold-rimmed edge of the cup as she stirred. "You will not _disgrace_ yourself—or force _me_ to do the same—by speaking the name of that _thing_ aloud."

He thought he'd been doing an admirable job keeping his tongue in check, but at this typically melodramatic pronouncement, Sirius couldn't help himself—he smirked.

"What, are you going to burst into flames if you say the word 'motorbi—'"

" _I told you not to speak of it_!" Mrs. Black snapped, losing her temper at last—though she regained control of it quickly—her next words came out so forcedly calm they might have been squeezed through a toothpaste tube. "Now, for the _last_ time—where _is_ that blasted abomination?"

This return to classic form bolstered Sirius's courage.

"Away—gone."

"Did you… _dispose_ of it?" The delicate stress on the word was exquisite.

"If you _mean_ did I pitch it into the sea, then _no_ , I didn't!" Sirius stubbornly set his jaw. "It's someplace safe, where you can't find it." His mother's eyes flashed, but he plunged on, recklessly. "And _if_ you try to have another _go_ at my bike, I _might_ just stick Regulus in the sidecar and—fly off to South America with him—and then you won't have _any_ sons to _bully_."

Walburga's eyes smoldered. Sirius instantly knew he'd gone too far. A direct threat was bad enough—one that involved taking her _son_ away from her—well—

— _That_ was just _asking_ for the claws to come out.

"If you were truly _stupid_ enough to trifle with me in such a way—know _this_." She leaned over the table. "You wouldn't make it _twenty miles_ before I caught you—and you would _not_ enjoy it very much when I _did_."

His defiant glare wavered slightly, in the face of the chill emanating from the other side of the table. At least the 'missus sweet' act was over.

"How long did you intend to keep _that thing_ a secret from us?" Walburga demanded, imperiously. "Did you _truly_ think we wouldn't find out about it?"

Familiar ground between them—Sirius felt more comfortable getting combative with her, when she was setting the pace.

"To tell you the truth, I was hoping to ride it out until my next _disowning,_ " he shot back, sarcastically. "The one that will hopefully _stick_ , this time, and render the point _moot_."

As soon as the words left Sirius's lips, a sickening wave of guilt followed.

The color rose in his mother's cheeks, but she remained silent—a discernible reaction in and of itself, for it was very rare that Walburga Black should be rendered speechless by anyone. Mother and son stared at one another while both cups of coffee sat on the table, abandoned. Sirius tried not to blink but—he found that odd, closed-off look on her face so unnerving that he could hardly bear to look at her—like staring directly into the sun.

As was true in the case of his father, yelling would have been preferable to this silence that felt as if it might stretch on for days.

At long last, Walburga looked down. He got the sense that she was thinking very carefully about her next words—but when she did speak, it was in her usual clipped and haughty manner.

"I find this subject—tedious. I don't wish to discuss it anymore. At least not at present." She looked around at the door that led to the kitchen. "Where is your brother?"

"Still—in bed, I think," Sirius answered her—and then he busied himself with playing with his sleeve cuff, eager to hide how unnerved he was by her strange docility.

Walburga let out a little huff that made her son's lip twitch. Regulus's tendency to sleep late had always annoyed her, and Sirius was surprised to find that the familiar look of irritation, her perfect nose scrunched up, in that funny way that made her look as though she was about to sneeze, stirred some-long buried and forgotten emotion in him.

His mother tapped her wand briskly against the breakfast trays—the flames she'd conjured to keep them warm went out.

"Well, he can have some breakfast when he finally decides to tumble out of bed." She sighed the long-suffering sigh of the mother of a teenage wizard. "I see no reason why _we_ should wait."

Another wave of her wand, and both silver lids flew up into the air and neatly stacked themselves to the right of the hamper.

Sirius, eager to busy himself with something that was not staring down his mother—and very hungry—lifted his fork and knife and looked down at his plate—then froze.

"…What—is this?"

Mrs. Black, who was delicately sawing a sausage in half, looked up to see where her son was pointing his knife.

"It's your breakfast." Sirius looked over at her plate—two poached eggs, a pair of sausages to match, a modest heap of fried potatoes, fruit—the same breakfast she ate every morning. "I hope you like it. I had it prepared for you _specially_."

Sirius swiveled his head back around to the plate in front of him, confusion growing. There were piles of food, here, too—but nothing she had _ever_ served him in the nearly seventeen years he'd lived under her roof. The bulk of the spread was taken up by a heap of something white and slimy which emanated a pungent smell, and an unappetizing brown gelatin-looking square he _supposed_ to be cheese. There were also eggs—hiding under a pile of smoked salmon, of all things.

"I know _that_ , I just mean—what _is that_?" He pointed at the fish, and then the chocolate-colored block. "And _that_?"

She looked up from her grapefruit to the two piles he was poking with his fork.

"Pickled herring and brown cheese," Mrs. Black supplied, helpfully, as she buttered a slice of toast. There was a slight edge to her voice, now, and Sirius looked up from his plate again, this time with a growing sense of dread.

The strange food was fast taking on some significance in Sirius's mind he couldn't—in his exhausted and semi-delirious state—place.

"And _why_ exactly would you think I want to eat _pickled herring_ and brown cheese?"

She went back to sawing her sausages into tiny pieces.

"It's—so I'm _told_ , at least—what they enjoy for breakfast—"

She looked up from her plate and gave him one of the icy looks that had felled many a stronger man than he in his day. He felt his body seize up.

"— _in Norway_."

It only took a second before Sirius dropped the fork and knife back on the table. For the first time since she'd come in the room, Walburga was giving her son her full attention, her sharp eyes flashing with that familiar sign.

 _Fuck._

"How—" Sirius dropped his head onto the table. " _How much_ did the girl tell you?"

His voice was depressed and muffled by the linen. Mrs. Black dispassionately watched as her eldest son, forehead still resting on the table, managed to bury his face in his hands.

"Oh—most _everything_ , I expect." She took another sip of her coffee, ignoring the loud groan from the boy across from her. She gave him a brittle look over the rim. "Everything she _knew,_ at any rate."

Tentatively, Sirius raised his head—and risked a peak through his fingers.

"And…how much did _you_ tell _her_?"

Walburga's son watched as she sipped from her coffee cup, seemingly oblivious to his hanging off the literal edge of his chair.

"If you are referring to the question of the _identity_ of the _fool_ she was caught with last night," Mrs. Black said, conversationally, lowering her cup. "I'm afraid I _was_ compelled to _end_ that unfortunate's charade."

Sirius let out another loud groan and sat up in his chair.

"Oh, no—Mum, you _didn't_."

Walburga blinked at him, nonplussed, immune to the effect of her eldest son muttering obscenities and running his hands manically through his hair.

"Well, did you at least—" A strangled noise emanated from the back of his throat. "—I mean—how did you _break_ it to her, exactly?"

"As gently as I believe anyone _could_ —under the circumstances," his mother replied, bluntly. She tapped her chin. "Of course, I _did_ wait until I'd extracted all useful information from her before doing so. A far greater mercy to the girl, I'd say—"

Her son went white as a sheet, and his eyes widened such that he looked positively gormless.

"—I think she was _far_ more receptive to telling me the truth about how she'd met her charming new friend—not knowing she was telling _his mother_ everything."

Another violent curse—but Walburga's patience with her son's colorful language came to an abrupt end, for her glare had the same effect as a whip-crack to the face. Sirius squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples—but the darkness only exacerbated his imagination, painting the horrifying picture all the more vibrantly.

He let out a sigh that felt like it lasted days.

"…So, erm…how did she—take it?"

His mother's look was withering.

"Do you even have to _ask_?" Sirius winced. "You lie to that girl about who you are, drawing her out—with some _ridiculous_ story about being a ' _family friend_ '—" Her eyes flashed with anger. "And _then_ convince her to sneak out of _our_ house at night, only to be caught by _your own mother_ sneaking back in. She was completely humiliated, of course—absolutely _mortified_." Mrs. Black paused in her recollections of Sirius's great crimes, for effect. "There _were_ tears."

His heart sank, and he glared at her—now she was just being _cruel_.

"I do hope you _enjoyed_ yourself, at least," Walburga continued, conversationally—she was taking a kind of perverse pleasure in watching her son squirm. "That this little _trick_ of yours was worth it."

"It wasn't _like_ that!" Sirius muttered, defensively. "And I was _about_ to tell her the truth—"

"Leaving it rather late, I'd say," Walburga interrupted, acidly. "Did you imagine she'd be amused to learn of your deception right before you boosted her into your old window? Or were you hoping to shove her _inside_ before she had a chance to jinx you?"

As defending the choices he'd made in an assignation with a young female to his _mother_ was the last thing Sirius had expected he'd have to do—he found himself floundering at this particular line of attack.

"I would've smoothed it over," he shot back, moodily. "'Course, I didn't get a chance to, did I? We were interrupted— _by you_."

His mother rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"Oh, let me apologize. The next time I catch a _prowler_ scaling the walls of my _house_ ," she said, tartly. "I'll be sure to allow him to finish his _conversation_ before I accost him—now eat your breakfast!"

Sirius opened his mouth to continue arguing, but she raised her wand and flicked it—he flinched. It was only the napkin flying into his lap, but it had the desired effect of silencing him.

He eyed the Nordic spread in front of him with newfound disgust, then looked up, expression mutinous.

"But it's— _pickled herring_."

"And you'll have _every last bite_ of that herring, Sirius Orion Black!" Walburga snapped. "You enjoy _pretending_ to be Norwegian and deceiving your family? Then you get to _eat_ like one."

He put his elbow on the table and leaned on his chin—poor table manners meant to provoke her. It worked, for as soon as she saw the gesture Walburga yanked his arm up by force.

Sirius threw her a resentful look and rubbed his arm.

"Is that the rule now? Get caught impersonating _one_ foreigner, and you have to adopt the worst customs of their country?" He gazed longingly across the table at his mother's sausages. "I wish that bloke had been German."

Walburga rapped her wand against the tabletop once more, and he turned back to his own dismal offerings. Grumbling, Sirius began to pick the salmon off the top of his eggs—he didn't object to fish, exactly, but he preferred not to have it before eight in the morning.

When Mrs. Black was satisfied her son was tucking into the Nordic breakfast she had prepared for him, she returned to her own English faire. The two Blacks ate their breakfast in heavy silence for a few minutes.

Sirius had always been scolded for bolting down his food—now his mother had to clear her throat every thirty seconds to remind him to keep it up.

"You know, this cheese isn't half-bad, really…" He said, after a few forced bites. Truly, it wasn't—but the sweet and nutty flavor was playing havoc with his stomach. Hangovers were not the ideal time to be playing around with new and unusual cuisine.

He chanced a look up at his mother. She was eating her food with an enthusiasm Sirius felt sure must've been for his benefit. Peppering her eggs that smugly ought to have been a fineable offense.

"Trade you a bit of it for one of those potatoes."

Mrs. Black popped the fried morsel into her mouth with relish. Her gray eyes swept critically over his still mostly uneaten food.

"Any part of that breakfast you don't finish will be served to your father, Sirius Orion," she informed him, smoothly. "So I suggest you get a move on before it's stone cold—and I have to explain to my husband why there's a lump of herring on his plate where the bacon ought to be."

Sirius huffed and shoved a mouthful of eggs into his mouth.

"Is that supposed to be a threat to _me,_ or a punishment for _him_?"

He had been hoping to push her into confessing her fury at Orion, but apart from a slight flicker behind the eyes, Mrs. Black remained frustratingly nonplussed. His disgruntled teeth grinding was drowned out by the sound of fresh coffee being poured into his cup. She hummed, tonelessly, as she refilled her own.

"On the subject of _my father_ ," Sirius continued, in a more subdued voice, pushing his salmon around the plate. "When can I expect a visit from old Orion?"

At his somewhat insolent use of his father's given name, Walburga narrowed her eyes—but she refrained from remarking on it, instead setting down the coffee service.

"Do you have an appointment with him?"

"No, but I expect I _will_ —" He gulped down more coffee. "Once he wheels the rack and the manacles out of the attic—or whatever _device_ he's decided is a fitting punishment for my latest series of transgressions."

Walburga hid a smile poorly behind her cup.

"You are _so_ dramatic." The Black matriarch nibbled a piece of toast. "I doubt very much your father would be so severe on you, even if he _did_ know about last night."

A forkful of herring was slowly lowered back down to the plate.

"What—you mean he—he doesn't _know_ yet?"

"No, he doesn't." She patted her mouth delicately. "And he won't _ever_ , if you don't have a mind to tell him yourself."

There were about five things that made no sense about this statement, but only one immediately struck Sirius.

"But—what about the girl?" He pushed his plate to the side and leaned forward in his chair. "Won't he—wonder where she is?"

Mrs. Black waved his concern away with her hand, airily.

"Oh, your father doesn't pay much mind to the whereabouts of his niece's silly friends." A wave of her wand in the direction of the grapefruit, which began to peel itself, and she continued, sensibly—

"—And as she'll no doubt be sitting down to breakfast with him in a half-hour or so, I doubt he'll think much of it at all."

Sirius stared at the grapefruit—then at her. He barely registered the quarter of the fruit that floated onto his plate, evenly sliced for his consumption.

This did not make sense.

"So—not only are you not telling your husband about _the events_ of last night—but you're letting Colette Battancourt _stay_?"

His mother gave him a knowing look.

"I _thought_ you'd be disappointed about that." She arched one perfect brow—Sirius felt a trickle of sweat down his neck. "That was why you lured you her out of the house, wasn't it? You were hoping I'd catch her and have her sent back to France, so she wouldn't be tempted to tell anyone else about your exploits at Malfoy Manor."

It was such a surprisingly astute summary of his actions, that for a moment he didn't know what to say. Sirius felt his face burn under his mother's shrewd gaze.

He decided the only safe answer was to sidestep the question.

"Did _she_ tell you that?"

Walburga smiled, faintly.

"Certainly not. _She_ wouldn't say a word against you—at least not before she found out who you were." He fiddled with his fork—Walburga gave him a condescending look. "No, call it a hunch on my part. I _do_ know you. Changing your mind halfway through and getting caught yourself is so _silly_ it's something only _you'd_ be capable of."

Sirius sighed.

"I didn't—feel right about it."

"I don't wonder! It was a rather nasty trick to play on that gullible slip of a witch."

Sirius looked so hangdog, staring at the table cloth, that he missed how Walburga's face softened.

"And if she _hadn't_ been caught with you and told me everything, your plan might've worked. She's lucky I'm so—generous."

Her son's expression of guilt turned instantly to suspicion.

"It appears we _both_ are." He sat up straighter in his chair. "You seem to be in a rather magnanimous mood about all this, Mother."

"Your herring is getting cold."

He shoveled some into his mouth, not taking his eyes off her. Like everything else on his plate, it wasn't terrible—at least as far as pickled fish was concerned. Walburga, the consummate housekeeper, apparently couldn't even make food that was supposed to be a form of punishment poorly.

He forced himself to swallow it.

"All I'm saying, is—" Impatient with his picky eating, Walburga reached over and began to spread the rest of his brown cheese onto a piece of toast for him. "—That you've cooled off _exponentially_ since last night."

"Last night I was in shock," Walburga pointed out, dryly. "I needed to…recover."

"Well, you've rallied admirably!" She shoved the toast into his hand. "So much so that it seems like you—like you aren't even angry at all."

"I'm not." He let out a laugh of disbelief, and she amended, quickly. "That is—I _was_ angry, last night—but upon reflection, I have decided not to be." She paused. "With you—or with your father."

It was such a ludicrous statement, coming from her that Sirius couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Even though he lied to you." Walburga blinked at him—Sirius let out a hollow laugh. "I don't _believe_ this—"

"—Your father is a very old-fashioned wizard, Sirius Orion," she explained, patiently. "I'm sure in his mind he was concealing the situation from me to—spare my feelings, and protect me—in his way."

He laughed without humor.

"Oh, I agree with you." Sirius leaned back in his chair. "That is _exactly_ why he did it—the part I'm not buying is that _you_ , of all people, aren't _furious with him_ for it."

His mother, far from showing the desired indignance and rage, actually had the nerve to look amused at her oldest son.

"Do you _relish_ the thought of me quarreling with your father, so?"

Sirius lowered the hand that had been gesticulating with feeling. She had called him out—he _had_ been, embarrassing though it was to admit. He'd been banking on it.

 _This_ he was not at all prepared for—and though thinking on his feet was something he usually enjoyed the challenge of, Sirius was not at his best—certainly not in an ideal condition to be duking it out with the most fearsome opponent he'd ever known.

He decided to try a change in strategy.

"I was just—expecting more of an interrogation." He laid both hands flat on the table—the unfortunate breakfast all but forgotten. "Are you even interested in knowing the reason _why_ I was at your father-in-law's birthday party disguised as a Norwegian? Does that matter to you at _all_?"

Walburga chewed her grapefruit thoughtfully as she considered this question.

"That depends." She lowered the rind to her plate and delicately wiped the juice off her fingers. "Have you discussed it with your father?"

"In _excruciating detail_."

"Then I see no reason to make you repeat yourself to _me_." He stared at her, bewildered—such a lack of curiosity in this moment was flooring. She gave her son a haughty look across the table. "I gather he's punishing you for it—as he _should_. But if your father doesn't think _I_ need to know any more about the business at present, I'm sure that I don't."

He furrowed his brow.

"So, what—you think when your husband lies to you, he's doing you a _favor?_ "

She clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

"Marriage is a complicated business, Sirius Orion," she explained, in a tone of voice that said she was humoring him. "And husbands and wives do _many_ things for their own reasons—that may appear strange to…outsiders."

Her son snorted and shook his head, gray eyes hard in his face as he stared her down. 'Outsiders'—he was their _son_ , for Merlin's sake.

"I don't understand the two of you at _all_." Sirius tapped his fingers on the table. "I never have."

Walburga gave him an odd, knowing look—one he didn't like the slightest bit.

"One day, perhaps—you _will_."

This statement hung in the air between them. Walburga, all but finished with her own meal, had now retired to sipping delicately from her cup of coffee—clearly waiting for him to speak. Sirius's mind was racing.

This seemed far too easy.

"You r _eally_ don't want to ask me anything else about the night of the party?"

Walburga sighed again—as if his repetition of the salient point of the evening was a trial to be endured.

"I already spent a great deal of time talking about it with the Battancourt girl—I'm fatigued of the subject. It's irksome to drag it all out again." She shrugged. "I think one interrogation is about all I have in me, and anyway—it's not as though you _want_ to discuss it with me, is it?"

Of course, it was the truth—but Sirius was also uneasy over not knowing exactly what the girl had said to his mother about the 'events' of the night before last. It made it much harder to figure out what she might've guessed all on her own.

There was one area in particular he was concerned about.

"So—you don't even care to know—" He paused, feigning casualness. " _How_ I got out of the house?"

Mrs. Black tilted her head, looking puzzled—and as was the usual default for her, annoyed at the puzzlement. Was it an act, or—

"Why would I? There wasn't anything remarkable in _that._ The girl told me your father caught you in the library and sneaked you out through the terrace."

Conveniently for her son, she was adding another sugar lump to her coffee, and missed the tell-tale look of surprise on Sirius's face.

"You're lucky the Malfoys' spell-work is so shoddy—Orion must've known there was a weakness in that section of the estate—you leaving by that way should have set off _something_ off." She sipped her sugary concoction and continued. "Old Abraxas must be slipping. Was there anything remarkable in your manner of escape, apart from that?"

He quickly shoved the piece of toast in his mouth to conceal his surprise. Mrs. Black watched him chew half a piece in one bite with faint distaste.

"Nothing—not at all," he said, swallowing the bread and cheese. His mouth felt very dry, and so he gulped down the now lukewarm coffee in his cup.

She made a faint 'hm' sound in the back of her throat and nodded.

"Well, then—" She tapped his cup, and instantly the coffee was hot again. "As I'm sure you're as sick to death of the subject as _I_ am—we need speak no more of it."

Her son stared at her, face incredulous. Mrs. Black, who had rarely, if ever, strayed from a fight—returned his rather impudent look with her own.

What the _hell_ was happening here? Walburga was taking the news of her husband and son's conspiracy and lies with an equanimity Sirius had not thought her humanly capable of.

"So—in summary—you're just letting me get away with the last forty-eight hours with nothing more than an _unfortunate breakfast_ as punishment."

It was Orion all over again—except with him, the anger had been bubbling just under the surface, was barely leashed, so that it had taken almost nothing for Sirius to provoke him into their unfortunate screaming match yesterday morning.

This was—he didn't know what _this_ was. She was utterly impassive, a complete blank—calm, personable.

He couldn't get a read on her at all.

"Do you get why that seems _odd_ to me, Mother?"

Walburga tapped her finely manicured fingernails on the tabletop.

"I suppose—I suppose I _do_."

Sirius, who had been expecting her to deny it, lowered the finger he'd raised in protest, feeling foolish.

"Well—" Sirius deflated. "Are you—are you going to give a _reason_ why you've had this change in attitude?"

"If you really _must_ know—then I'll—tell you."

All at once his mother's demeanor changed. Gone was the clipped, brisk lady of business who had marched into the flat—back into his life.

In her place was a worried, middle-aged woman, looking at the eldest son from whom she'd been estranged for three years with a sincere—fear.

"It is _Christmas_ , Sirius."

When he heard her say _those_ words with _that_ voice, his insides seemed to freeze up.

"And I—" Walburga's voice hitched in her throat. "—And I am _tired_ of you fighting with your father."

A piece of herring fell off his fork and into the dregs of the eggs with a sickly _plop_.

"What do you suppose would have happened if I _had_ woken him up last night?" She continued, pointedly. "He would have been furious, and he'd have come charging over here in a _rage_ — _you_ would have gotten defensive and had a _nasty_ fight with him, for which he'd feel obliged to punish you, and you'd both be even more angry with one another than you already _are_."

Sirius said nothing—all of this was right. It was perfectly true, and when she put it this way, it made all the sense in the world to say nothing.

"Tell me, Sirius Orion—what good would _any_ of that do me, in the end? Do you imagine that I _enjoy_ my son and husband being at loggerheads all the time?" Walburga's breath caught in her throat again.

"Can you blame me for not wanting to cause more discord in my family?"

Sirius tried to speak—but no words would come. He shifted in his seat and glanced down at the table—at the wall clock. It was suddenly very difficult to look her in the face.

He began to trace his initials with his index finger on the tablecloth, an ancient habit from his pre-Hogwarts schooling days, a way to pass the time—or to avoid paying attention to a boring lecture from a disagreeable tutor. Her breathing was shallow—

 _S…O…B…S…O…_

 _—_ If he looked in her eyes now, would there be moisture there?

The sound of another loud sigh made Sirius look up from the table again. Whatever brief, apparent loss of control over her emotions Mrs. Black had experienced, she had them well in hand now.

"All _that_ aside—there's also the matter of the girl herself." Sirius stopped the absent doodling on the table. "I'm not convinced sending her away would make her any less of a problem."

"What do you—"

"—Narcissa will ask a lot of questions—as would the girl's aunt, and parents. She might crack under the pressure, even back in Normandy." Sirius frowned. "I've got a promise from her that she'll keep her silence, and I believe her to be sincere. I think—all-in-all—it's more sensible if we let her stay for the duration of the planned visit."

Sirius tried to come up with an argument—but when she presented it like this, even with the slightly condescending smile that spoke to her estimation of his ability to think rationally—well, she was right.

"So then…" He chanced a look back up at her. "…You're letting me off the hook?"

"Call it an early Christmas present." Her hard expression faltered for a moment. "I—your father says that I push you too hard. I am trying…not to do that."

Now _she_ was the one fiddling with her teaspoon, not able to meet his gaze.

"This isn't you," Sirius said, his voice faint.

"Perhaps I've changed."

Sirius stared at her. Her face—still beautiful, after all this time—her arched black brows over twin gray tempest eyes, the full mouth relaxed, not pressed in its usual thin line—and though she was watching him intently, it was with none of the hawkishness he usually associated with her.

For a moment—one telling, weak moment, in which his stomach flip-flopped unpleasantly—he believed her.

He wanted it to be true.

Then he remembered who he was dealing with.

 _It's what she wants you to think._

Sirius's face and resolve hardened.

"Alright—you don't tell him about the bike, or about last night—or that you know about the night before—fine. What do you want in return?"

"I just told you it was a gift."

"Well, I'd rather it was a transaction."

His mother raised an eyebrow.

"Don't you trust me?"

She sounded amused. Sirius forced himself to meet the slightly mocking gaze.

"To tell you the truth—no, I don't. I'd rather know upfront what you think you're getting out of this—otherwise I've got it half in mind to just tell my father about it myself."

She stood up, pushing out her chair smoothly.

"Very well. If that's how you feel—" Walburga gave him a feline smile. "Would you like me to go fetch him?"

They locked eyes across the table. Sirius scowled and took another bite of cold herring. Walburga inched her way towards the door—

"That—won't be necessary," he said, too hastily for it to be mistaken for anything but fear. "You—don't have to get him."

"So you— _don't_ want him to know about this little incident?"

She was really enjoying this, wasn't she? he thought, upon seeing her smile broaden.

"No—I do not," Sirius admitted, voice dull. "Does that make you happy? I suppose you want me to kiss your feet, as well."

"Certainly not." She wrinkled her nose at the distasteful suggestion. "However—a 'thank you' would not be remiss on this occasion."

Mrs. Black's eyes gleamed with expectation. Sirius, slouching on the table, forced himself to sit back up.

She crossed her arms and smiled with the amazing patience of a woman who was obviously willing to wait as long as it took to get what she desired. Sirius let out another long sigh.

"Thank you," he muttered, stiffly. "Thank you _very_ much—Mother."

Triumphant, his mother sat back down—looking like a Kneazle that had just consumed a supper of field mice and washed it down with a pint of heavy cream.

Of course she'd called his bluff—whatever she was after, _he_ stood to lose more from Orion finding out. Sirius toyed with his food, turning the idea over in his head. She was the last person he would ever willingly make a deal with—but in the short term, it did seem the most sensible option available to him.

There was plenty of time to figure out her game, he thought, eying her uneasily over his plate.

Besides—he was still capable of playing along.

"Tell me, Mother—what would be an early Christmas present _you'd_ enjoy?" Her eyes flickered, disquieted. "One good turn deserves another."

Mrs. Black sniffed haughtily, and began putting her gloves back on.

"If you _must_ make it an exchange," she sighed, heavily. " _I_ would like it very much if you would stop provoking your father all the time."

The color rose in Sirius's face.

"If you want his attention, that's fine—but you don't need to act out like a _child_ to get it."

"I do not 'act out' to get his attention!" her son proclaimed, hotly—but her nonplussed reaction only sparked his temper. "Is _that_ what you both think the last three years were? One long bid to get you to notice me?"

At the mention of the dreaded three-year-gap, Walburga froze. Her son laughed, bitterly.

"If it _was_ , it didn't really work, did it?"

He snapped his mouth shut again. Walburga's look was knowing—it was even a little bit fond, in that slightly possessive way that made his chest tighten.

The old desire to bolt _overwhelmed_ him.

"Fine. I will—be polite to your husband." He pointedly made no promise to apologize to Orion. He wouldn't do that over his own dead corpse, as a ghost. "What else?"

"It goes without saying that I will _never_ see that Muggle contraption again."

As he had no intention of letting her or her wand anywhere near it, that suited Sirius well enough.

"Out of sight, out of mind," he agreed, quickly. "Is that all?"

Walburga waved her wand, and her now empty plate and silver flew into the air and neatly back in the hamper.

"That will do perfectly well for the present." She readjusted her cap and stood up. "You'll be happy to hear that I will leave you, now—"

He looked up, hopefully—

"—Once I see that _plate_ is clean."

She looked down at him, expectantly—her son stared back. After a long moment of mutual staring, Sirius groaned and picked up the fork and knife again.

Mother watched son as he shoveled the remains of his breakfast into his mouth as quickly as possible. When he was done with his herring ( _"There—happy?"_ ) she cleared the table of his plate and silver, which joined hers.

Another tap of the wand, and a third covered silver platter floated out of her basket.

"This is Regulus's." Sirius sniffed in the air, hopefully—Mrs. Black narrowed her eyes. "Don't even _think_ about trying to pilfer his sausages—you'll be in for a nasty surprise if you do."

He eyed the metal tray with distrust—a stinging jinx had been placed on it, in all likelihood. Then a thought occurred to Sirius, and his sense of injustice stirred.

"You mean _he_ doesn't have to eat like a Norwegian?"

Walburga looked up from the clutch purse she was rooting through, absently.

"No—why would he?"

"He's only been _my_ accomplice!" Sirius exclaimed, indignantly. "He knew about what I was up to the last two nights—and _he_ lied to you, too."

Walburga found the diamond broach she'd been looking for and pinned it on, utterly unconcerned by her son pointing out this apparent double standard. She had always been dismissive when accused of treating her two sons differently. The few times Sirius had ever tried to get his brother in trouble, she had scolded him for 'telling tales'—though she never seemed to have the same reservations about Regulus's confessions. She liked to be confirmed in her suspicions, and Walburga Black's suspicion about her children had been, since they were toddlers, that Sirius Orion _led_ and Regulus Arcturus _followed._

 _That,_ Sirius thought, at least, had not changed.

"Yes, well—of course, he _should_ have alerted us—and he probably deserves a scolding…" She busied herself with the fastenings on her cloak. "But one can't help but feel—he's still under the weather and shouldn't be—overexcited."

Sirius snorted. 'Under the weather'—only _she_ could make an Inferi attack and whatever the _hell_ had been in that potion sound like a bout of influenza. His mother continued, practically—

"And anyway, you _bully_ him so—what could he have done about it?"

"He could've stunned me—dueled me into submission, if he really wanted to stop me." Walburga laughed at the very thought. "He's not a child anymore, Mum."

Mrs. Black snapped the clasp of her purse shut.

"Why are you so eager to tell tales about Regulus? _He's_ not the one who has been sneaking about at night. He's been safely tucked away here, where he can't get into any more trouble."

She sounded as though she were trying to convince _herself_ as much as she was him.

"You'd be surprised."

" _Nothing_ my children does surprises me," Mrs. Black shot back, coolly.

To this, Sirius said nothing—his expression went completely blank, and he showed no signs of wishing to dispute her bold claim of knowledge about him and his brother. Walburga looked perturbed, but as she was happy to not be drawn into a tedious debate, she allowed the matter to drop without further comment.

"Well, I should get back to the house, as your father and the—" She stopped herself, an expression of remembrance flitted across her face, and then, off-handedly, almost carelessly.

"Oh! There was _one_ other thing…"

Both of Sirius's eyebrows flew up. His mother had crossed around the table, dressed in her ermine lined cloak again—looking particularly glamorous and beautiful, which was her at her most dangerous, as far as he was concerned.

She leaned forward, staring him square in the eyes.

"I want you to stay away from the girl."

He didn't blink.

"W- _what_?"

Mrs. Black smiled, thinly.

"You heard me. _Don't_ write her an owl or—try to contact her in any other way. Don't contrive to meet or speak to her." Sirius returned her stare coolly. "I don't want you having _anything_ to do with that witch."

He suddenly was aware of how parched he was and how cracked his lips were, and he chewed on the lower one.

"Why would you think I would—"

"—I am not a fool, Sirius Orion," his mother cut him off, coldly. "As I said—I _know_ my children. The girl did not tell me _much_ about last night, but I gather you filled her head with some of your ridiculous ideas about the world."

Her dismissive tone suggested the only thing Mrs. Black found worse than her son's notions was the idea of him spreading them to respectable young women.

"Given how last night ended, it would be imprudent for you to keep any _plans_ you might have made," Walburga continued, in a light voice. "But I feel, just the same, a warning is merited."

Walburga's face was only a few inches from his, now.

" _Do not trifle with me._ " She pronounced each word slowly and deliberately. "I have been generous, but even _my_ patience has its limits. Leniency for one indiscretion is not permission to commit any _more._ "

Sirius only looked back at her, stoic and silent—a rarity in an exchange between them. She watched him, gauging her son for a reaction—but the windows behind his eyes were shuttered.

Satisfied by whatever his opaque expression meant to her, Mrs. Black pulled back from her son and stepped around the table, pulling her sable around her shoulders in preparation for the cold.

"Anyway, I can't imagine _why_ you'd have an interest in that girl beyond removing her from our sphere—" Walburga walked over to the mirror to readjust a tendril of hair by tucking it under her cap. "—She's hardly one of your 'loose blondes'—but in any case, I told her if you _should_ try to contact you, to simply _ignore you._ "

The angle of the mirror was such that Mrs. Black could quite comfortably watch the delicate play of emotions across her firstborn's face at her leisure.

"She was very contrite last night," she continued, lightly. "She knows what she's done was wrong, and is naturally eager to put it behind her and be a dutiful daughter— _I_ am eager to help her in this. I don't want to ruin her holiday—not when she seems _so sincere_."

She turned on her heel.

"Do you understand me, Sirius Orion?"

"Perfectly."

"And you see the sense in what I have said?"

Sirius went still—he was giving her the same hawkish look he'd had leveled at him hundreds of times in the past, but it did not have the desired effect of unraveling Walburga's shrewd line of defense.

"Yes. You're—there's no reason for me to have anything more to do with Colette Battancourt," He shrugged and threw an arm over the back of his chair, casually indifferent. "Assuming, you know—she really _is_ going to keep quiet about it all."

Mrs. Black arched her brow once more.

"Oh, I assure you, she _will_."

His affected indifference wavered.

"Did you… _threaten_ her?"

Sirius's low voice was flat, but there was something tight in his tone—as if he was working very hard to hide his barely leashed anger, and almost succeeding in the task.

Walburga gave him one of her classic withering looks, clearly insulted by the question.

"I only have _Mademoiselle_ Battancourt's _best_ interests at heart, I assure you."

Her son said nothing in reply—only stared up at her with a newfound distrust, which he was not bothering to conceal.

Mrs. Black paid it no mind.

"Well—this was very pleasant, I'd say." She clasped her hands together, a bland and pleasant expression flitting across her face. "We should do it more often."

Sirius grimaced, and Mrs. Black crossed back over to the dining room table. She stopped, directly across from her son, and leaned forward, catching his chin between her index finger and thumb. Far from her usual iron grip, however, the Black matriarch was gentle as she tilted his head up to meet her gaze.

She inspected the circles around his eyes, critically.

"You really _should_ go back to bed and rest, Sirius Orion—it will do you good."

He grunted, noncommittally. Walburga's fingers—clothed in satin, though he could still feel the warmth of her touch through the delicate fabric—lingered on his face. When it was obvious her stubborn boy was not going to make the desired promise to go back to sleep, she sighed.

"You _will_ remember everything I've told you."

"I always do."

His mother smiled—sincerely, and for one wild moment, Sirius thought she was going to kiss him on the forehead. He wasn't sure whether he wanted her to or not—a realization so unsettling that his forehead reddened at the thought.

He was spared having to find out what he would do in that event, for Mrs. Black only gave him a fleeting maternal look, released his chin—and left without another word.

Sirius sat at the dining room table and stared at the empty chair across from him, convinced the woman who'd so recently occupied it had been no more than a phantom, or a mirage—a trick of the light, a hallucination.

His eyes darted to the door. He almost expected the real Walburga to burst in at any moment, furious and railing, brandishing her wand, screeching loud enough to wake Regulus and everyone on the block.

She didn't.

He furrowed his brow, rubbed his chin—the same spot her fingers had brushed against, for the scent of her perfume lingered. Sirius leaned the legs of his chair back and stared hard at the light fixture.

Possibilities, problems, a thousand questions all jockeyed for supremacy in his head.

What the _hell_ had _that_ been?

A minute of hard thinking, and Sirius dropped the legs back on the floor. The wizard waved his wand at the sideboard—a ream of parchment, quill and bottle of ink flew to him and tumbled, clumsily, onto the tables beside him. For a few seconds he merely stared at the blank page.

Then he lifted his hand and began to write.

That was how Regulus found Sirius when he turned up, still dressed in his pajamas, fifteen minutes later.

"'Morning." Regulus's brother nodded his head vaguely and mumbled a reply. There were several ink-stained crumpled pages surrounding Sirius on the table and floor.

The younger Black brother pulled up a seat across from Sirius—his eyes fell on the covered silver dish, which was still wafting out a delightful aroma. As most breakfasts in the flat consisted of cold muesli and toast—for Sirius was about as good a cook as Regulus, when it came down to it—the sight of this prepared meal gave him pause.

"Was Kreacher here?"

Sirius snapped out of his daze and saw where his brother was looking.

"That's yours," he said, indifferently, and Regulus lifted the lid to find a breakfast nearly identical to the one his mother had had—the only addition being a large scone and berries, a favorite treat of his childhood that Walburga occasionally let him indulge in at breakfast.

Sirius glanced at the spread with poorly disguised resentment, but Regulus, who was never one to question the origins of good food, was too busy tucking in to notice.

He tried to focus on his letter, but the smell of the sausage proved to be rather distracting.

"Give _me_ one, will you?"

Regulus, long used to Sirius's imperious demands, moved the dish just out of reach. His brother rolled his eyes, reached out his hand to pluck it from the plate—then the remembered threat gave him pause.

Not worth the risk of getting stung.

He stared down at the missive in front of him, then glanced up at Reg. He was watching him write with interest.

"Tell me something, Reg—" He tapped the edge of the parchment against the tabletop. "D'you think if our mother found out about me being an Animagus, she'd be able to contain her _glee_ at having something _that_ juicy on me?"

Regulus stopped chewing.

"Probably not," he answered, bluntly. He lowered the scone back to the plate, looking thoughtful. "Do you think she knows?"

His brother shrugged, carelessly.

"I'm not sure…"

Sirius stood up and stroked his chin. He was in need of a shave—or at least, that was what he told himself the very light bristle on his cheek was. He'd been trying to grow a beard for over a year, but even Peter had more need of a straight edge than he did.

"But there's _one_ way to find out."

He lifted the parchment off the table, folded it in half and affixed it, clumsily, with a piece of tape.

"Very elegant," Regulus remarked, dryly—and he sounded so uncannily like their father that Sirius was tempted to throw the quill at him. "What's that?"

"A signal to a—trusted source on the ground," Sirius replied, voice cryptic. He picked up his coffee cup. "I'm going to post this in a sec. You, erm—have any letters you need sent?"

Regulus's eyes flickered.

"…No."

"So things have quieted down, then?" The younger brother chewed his scone slowly. "In—France?"

Regulus swallowed and stared up at his brother, stonily.

"Father says no post is to leave this flat without him inspecting it first."

"Of course, _he's_ not here." Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Just you and me."

They stared at one another—neither feeling the need to say it, both understanding. Sirius at last blinked and looked away.

"Alright, well—if you change your mind." Sirius clapped his hands together. "You know where to find me."

His brother's pale face betrayed nothing.

Sirius stopped at the door.

"By the way, in case it comes up—" He turned around and called over his shoulder. "Mum knows everything about last night and most of the night before. So if she comes 'round and mentions it, don't bother playing stupid." Regulus's face drained of all remaining color. "Not that you can help it, most of the time."

Regulus dropped his silverware onto his plate.

"What do you _mean,_ 'she knows everything'?"

His brother shrugged.

"Only that I changed my mind about the girl, and when Mother caught me trying to sneak her back into Grimmauld Place, _she_ told her everything." Regulus buried his face in his hands in exasperation. "Bit of a cock-up on my part, really."

"You don't say," Regulus replied, his sarcasm withering—though its effect was lost on Sirius, inoculated from the effect by a lifetime of Orion. " _Merlin_ , Sirius!"

"Call this a courtesy tip-off—you're welcome in advance."

"Why— _why_ would you tell me that?" Regulus asked, his voice muffled by his palms. "You've ruined the day—I'm not going to be able to hear a door creak and not think it's Mother."

Sirius rolled his eyes—everybody questioned his plausible deniability strategy until they knew more than they wanted to. Typical.

"You were so pissed off about me not warning you when _our father_ caught me in the act, I thought you'd appreciate the heads-up."

His brother let out another low groan.

"That was different—it was _him_. _"_ Regulus glowered in the direction of his eggs _._ "In _this_ case, I _preferred_ being in the dark."

He looked up at Sirius, and when he saw that his brother was in a good humor, in spite of these dire circumstances, his tense shoulders visibly relaxed. Sirius shot him a cheeky grin and drained the rest of his cold coffee.

"Don't worry—she doesn't blame _you_ for my shocking behavior."

"I didn't—" He looked up from his plate, expression sulky. "I—didn't think she _did_."

The way Regulus said it was strained—as if he wished that he could believe his mother thinking such a thing was even possible. He poked at one of his sausages, moodily.

"Is she angry with you?"

"No—not at all." Sirius laughed. "That's what she says, anyway."

A look of surprise flitted across Regulus's face—and then, just as quickly, he furrowed his brow.

"That can't be right."

" _Obviously_."

"So…" Regulus hesitated. "Then…you think she's—up to something?"

His brother rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"Don't be daft. Of _course_ she's up to something." He jabbed the letter in the air, brandishing it in Regulus's direction. "And I'll tell you something else, Reg—I'm going to figure out what. Whatever this game of Mum's is, I'm going to play by my own rules—not hers."

He tapped his forehead—Regulus scoffed quietly, less impressed with his brother's powers of deduction—at least where their mother is concerned.

"I see you're picking up right where you left off."

Sirius laughed—a quiet, slightly derisive sound that made his brothers' hackles rise.

"Jealous?" Regulus's face colored. "If you'd like to cross swords with her, I'm more than happy to show you the ropes, Reg. It would require, however…" His eyes lingered on Regulus's breakfast plate. "…stepping into the ring."

The younger Black brother pushed his half-eaten breakfast away from himself and set the silver fork down, neatly.

"Thanks all the same—but I don't need any 'pointers'," he said, coolly. "I'm not in the business of pissing them off. I'm not trying to be _you_."

"Oh—I'd never accuse you of _that_." He frowned. "Real question is—who _are_ you trying to be?"

Dark brown eyes blinked up at him, unperturbed. Willing to be pushed hard, and ready to resist the urge to push back. Prime Regulus—all the self-control that his brother had never gotten the knack of.

He couldn't be provoked into speaking—his brother would have to try a different approach—one that he was far less comfortable with.

"Look, Regulus…" Sirius took a deep breath and rubbed the side of his head, overtaken with a bout of self-consciousness. "About those—those letters…"

It was instant, like a television set being switched off. The haughty pain-in-the-arse, the shrimp forever loudly protesting plans he always went along with in the end—Sirius younger brother—was gone.

In his place, a stranger.

Regulus's pupils dilated, so that his eyes went black—and everything recognizable about the person he'd known his entire waking life, the person he should have known far better than he did—all receded into the mask.

"What _about_ the letters?"

Cold, methodical—calculating, even. Cool. He sounded older. It unsettled him—a glimpse of something he wasn't ready to look at, full in the face.

Sirius lost his nerve.

"Let's—let's have a look at them together, after lunch." One, two, three blinks—a flutter of slightly too-long lashes, the puckering of the brow, which said he was working out a problem, or something said but not understood. "You know—for the…the necklace. The opals."

A fourth blink. _Oh._

"Sure—that sounds…it's a good idea."

Regulus shoved the rest of his scone into his mouth, swallowing it in a single bite—some stray crumbs dribbled down his face.

He was himself again. His elder brother felt an enormous wave of relief wash over him—Sirius beamed—and let out a bark of an awkward laugh.

 _This_ he could handle.

"I mean, granted—the whole thing's a bloody waste of time. We're not going to _actually_ find anything." Sirius shoved his hands in the pockets of his robes—it didn't have the same effect as his jeans. He made a mental note to change at the first opportunity. "The family probably nicked it in the first place, like Number Twelve—and the only record of the event are the bones buried beneath the kitchen. Still…"

"…It can't hurt to check," Regulus finished for him, softly.

"Right." Sirius nodded. "Together."

Another look between them, a sigh—and then the elder of the two walked back into the kitchen and towards the fire escape. An owl would come soon to drop off the day's post, and with any luck—and a few treats he stowed in his pocket for such occasions—would be only too happy to deliver this message for him.

As he walked out onto the the balcony and breathed in the crisp winter air, the conversation with his brother played back in his mind, like an omnioculars' set's dial being twisted right and left. The exchange had left him with a taste worse than pickled fish in his mouth—he scowled and watched a pair of cats fight for a section of rubbish bin territory.

 _I shouldn't have let it go._

But there was no point in lingering over might-have-beens. His dissatisfaction with the exchange was probably not even rational. It could all turn out well, in the end—if he played cards right and learned to be strategic.

Sirius sighed and leaned against the bannister, already eager for the first cigarette of the day. He comforted himself with the thought that, though he may not have known _bollocks_ about how to talk to his family, at least there was _one_ member of it he had learned not to push.

It was a lesson learned just in time, for Regulus was proving—against all odds—to be the most surprising of the bunch.

* * *

 **Happy new in-universe day! Hope it was worth the wait. Please let me know what you think in the comments. :)**


	13. Chapter 13

_"_ _Kreacher bowed again and said, 'Whatever Master says,' then muttered furiously, 'Master is not fit to wipe slime from his mother's boots, oh my poor Mistress, what would she say if she saw Kreacher serving him, how she hated him, what a disappointment he was—'"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 13**

* * *

"G-good morning."

Orion Black glanced up from the day's newspaper and towards the door of the dining room.

"Good morning." He folded his newspaper and set it down at his right side at the head of the table—the place where he had sat every morning since his father had given him full possession of the house as a wedding present a quarter-century before.

The figure at the threshold—the girl in pink—made no sign of having heard him, or any indication that she planned to move from her guard-post. Mr. Black cleared his throat.

"You _may_ come in the room, Ms. Battancourt—" He smiled, sardonically. "—In your own good time, of course."

Colette Battancourt blushed and scurried through the doorway, mumbling something about not wishing to disturb him—but before she'd even finished her excuse Mr. Black had returned to his paper. Out of the corner of his eye, Orion watched as the witch helped herself to a modest plate of fruit and eggs, served from one of the generous silver tureens of food that had been laid out along the south wall—and sat down at the place setting _farthest_ from him at the dining room table.

Breakfasts in Grimmauld Place were a comparatively informal affair. Every morning the food was put out by the elf at 7:30 _sharp_ (the master liked to breakfast early) and it would all be cleared away by no later than nine. A married women had the privilege of eating her breakfast in bed, but the other guests of the house had a wide window in which to dine, in their own good time.

As luck would have it, this morning Orion had woken late—which is how he had ended up in the position of eating breakfast with this girl, circumstances he would not have enjoyed even had their last conversation at Malfoy Manor _not_ taken place.

Judging from her mouselike attempts to make herself inconspicuous, he thought, watching her over his paper—she hadn't forgotten it, either.

"I apologize for not being here to greet you when you and Narcissa arrived," Orion remarked, after the witch had begun eating. "I was called away by some—rather pressing business. It couldn't wait. You understand."

"I know." Mr. Black frowned—the girl's color rose. "That is—I am sure it was very important. I wasn't at all offended, _Monsieur_ Black. I am—grateful to be allowed to stay in your home, as Narcissa's guest—at all."

He nodded, slowly.

"My wife told me you were already in bed when she arrived back." Colette froze. "Do you keep early hours in the country, as a general rule?"

She forced herself to keep looking into his eyes, despite the fact that she could feel her face burning.

"Yes—usually," Colette managed to stammer out. "That is how _Maman_ and _Père_ prefer it."

"Hm." There was mild approval in his tone. "Very sensible. Your father is a wise man."

The girl pinked and nodded, then busied herself with buttering a crumpet. She made no further attempt at conversation, and so a grateful Mr. Black returned to his reading—almost as happy as _she_ was to not have to feign interest in the goings-on of this wisp of a girl he, if he had his druthers, would just as soon _not_ be hosting.

This left Colette free to study him, surreptitiously—and contemplate, for the hundredth time that day, how she could have been so monumentally stupid.

And _blind._

Her eyes traced over his features—the straight noise, forceful gray eyes—now languid in their perusal of the day's news—and the full mouth, resting in an expression of haughty disinterest as he slowly spooned porridge into his mouth. It should not have been possible to do so elegantly, but Mr. Black managed it.

The resemblance was unmistakeable—even _uncanny—_ so much so that Colette could not begin to understand how she had not realized the truth the second he had turned around in the shop to see who was laughing at his joke.

Hadn't she thought, when meeting Regulus Black the summer before, that there was a strong resemblance between him and his father? But that was nothing to the extraordinary likeness between Orion and his _elder_ son.

Sirius Black.

 _Sirius._

It had only taken seven _mostly_ sleepless hours to get used to thinking of him by his real name. She had spent the better part of the night staring up at the ceiling of her four-poster, running conversation after conversation, _hint after hint,_ through her tired mind, trying to see where she had missed the obvious—so obvious it was literally staring her in the face. At the very least, Colette thought, when the dawn had broken and light had crept through the window, stirring her from bed and a sleepless night and she tried to be philosophical about her predicament—at _least_ she had pegged her new friend well.

He _was_ well-bred.

The imposter Svensson, the impudent boy in the shop, the owner of the noisy black motorcycle who had shown her the best view in London—was, in fact, the publicly-supposed runaway scion of one of the wealthiest magical dynasties in all of Europe.

And she— _she_ was a little _idiot._

Her host turned to the back page of the paper and lowered it so he could more easily catch the light—Colette could see his face better this way. She had barely touched her breakfast, but if he noticed her watching him read, Mr. Black showed no sign of caring.

No—she supposed it would be beneath his dignity to do so.

After five or so minutes of pretending to be interested in the fruit in between glancing up at the Black patriarch, Colette found herself somewhat mollified. In _looks_ he may have been the spitting image of his eldest son—or rather, Sirius was the spitting image of his father—but every gesture, every expression Orion Black allowed himself to make was done with surety, grace, poise—and above all—self-possession.

It was a far cry from the headstrong boy with the flying motorbike who spoke without thinking and who wore his emotions—like his heart—on his sleeve.

They were so different in manner—perhaps she had not been _so_ stupid to have missed it.

" _Monsieur_ Black—" A piece of bread stuck in her throat. Colette swallowed it with difficulty. "About the—about the night before last…"

Two piercing gray eyes darted up from _The Daily Prophet._

The icy look chilled Colette to her bone. She sat, rooted to the spot—frozen under the narrowed gaze of her host, struck dumb. She had the same creeping feeling of dread—the stumble of a misstep—that had paralyzed her the night before. Colette had no one to blame for this but herself.

After all…she _had_ been _warned._

 _"My husband—may prove a difficulty."_

 _Colette watched Mrs. Black march back and forth across the length of the room, wearing holes in the carpet and looking every bit the general marshaling her troops._

 _"I'm afraid the events of last night have—prejudiced him against you somewhat."_

 _"Is Monsieur Black…very angry?" Colette asked, her voice infinitesimal. Her head still pounded, and she was so overwhelmed that the French witch was finding it easier to focus on each question her mind raised individually._

 _It helped steady her—and keep her from allowing herself to believe that Madame Black could mean what she_ thought _Madame Black meant._

 _"At you?" The matron stopped her pacing and looked around, sharply. "Certainly not. It's Sirius Orion he's angry with—you've just managed to get yourself caught in the middle of the two of them while they're…while they…"_

 _She trailed off, incapable or unwilling to describe exactly what it was her male relations were embroiled in. Walburga sighed and shook her head. Her irritation was obvious—though whether these feelings were directed at her husband, her son, or the witch sitting on the bed in front of her—Colette couldn't say._

 _In all likelihood it was some combination thereof._

 _"Really!" she continued, discarding the loose thought with a single word. "If that man were thinking_ clearly _he'd be grateful to you—but it's a lesson you'll have to learn, if you haven't already—" Mrs. Black turned on her heel and resumed her pacing. "—when it comes to their sons, men_ rarely _behave rationally."_

 _Colette had heard something like that—but it had been about witches and their sons, so she merely nodded her agreement. Madame Black was, thankfully, not waiting on baited breath for her to verbally acquiesce._

 _"As I said, it's a mere—challenge. You can still win back his favor. Just—leave my husband to me."_

 _Colette was only too happy to do so._

 _"Mr. Black doesn't like forward girls who talk back. You need only be polite and stay out of the way—" Her eyes flashed dangerously."And for_ goodness' _sake,_ don't _mention last night to him._ That _could ruin everything."_

 _Colette felt her heart sink._

 _"But Madame Black—I hate to—to lie…"_

 _Mrs. Black stopped walking. She turned her head sharply—a gesture Colette was fast beginning to think of as being akin to a bird of prey._

 _The chaperone who watched like a hawk—she'd have to save that, for one of her stories, Colette thought, feeling giddy and light-headed all at once, as if she'd been plopped down into the life of one of her characters._

 _She was not as quick-witted as they were._

 _"It isn't lying, girl—it's having…discretion." She walked up to the young witch and loomed above her. "When the time is right Mr. Black will learn the truth. These things are always about timing. For now it's better he doesn't know anything about your continued…association."_

 _"But—all the same—"_

 _Mrs. Black's expression turned grim._

 _"Do not mistake me, my dear," Mrs. Black said, in a flat voice. "I was not making a suggestion."_

"What _of_ it?"

Colette felt her face redden under his eagle-eyed stare. He had phrased the question politely, his voice even-keel—far more than his wife's would've been, under the circumstances.

She gulped and swallowed.

"It was a—a very lovely party." She twisted her hands in her lap. "Your father is a very lucky man, to have such a—large and… _devoted_ family."

Mr. Black silently stared at her.

Colette met his gaze—wondering if she had said the wrong thing—but then he blinked, and the brief anxiety that had flitted across Orion's face flickered and disappeared. He picked up his newspaper. It seemed he did it more as an excuse to extricate himself from breakfast conversation—for he surely must've read every article of interest by now.

"Thank you." He turned a page, looking handsomely bored once more. "I'll be sure to tell him you said as much."

Colette was spared the agony of conscience another moment alone in his presence would bring her by the arrival of a third, to break up their party.

"Good morning, uncle—Colette!" Narcissa flashed her friend a fond smile and crossed to the sideboard. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Mrs. Malfoy looked sleek and well-rested, with her hair done-up in one of her exquisite braided hairstyles that in ordinary circumstances Colette would have been staring at with envy.

Now just the _thought_ of doing one's hair up to impress made her ill.

"Ah—Narcissa." Orion glanced up from the paper. "I'm surprised to see you up and about. I thought you'd be breakfasting in bed, given your—condition."

She crossed to the table and sat on Colette's side. Her plate was noticeably laden compared to her friend's, and the smile she gave her uncle when she sank down into her chair was particularly radiant.

"I would have—only _I_ didn't get a chance to see you last night, and I wanted to catch you before you became too engrossed in your business shut up in your study." She looked between her friend and uncle with interest. "How are you and Colette getting on?"

"Very well," he answered, smoothly. "You both went to bed early last night."

"More like you came in late, Uncle Orion," Narcissa wrinkled her nose. "Where did you and my aunt dine? She never mentioned."

"Oh—we were with the Gibbons," Mr. Black answered, with no hesitation, and as if he had anticipated the next question on her lips, continued, "You haven't met them, as far as I know. They're third or—fourth cousins on my mother's side. Your parents don't socialize much with the McMillans. Never have. Cygnus thinks they're all soft in the head."

Colette marveled at it—the lie was so smooth and effortless, his hesitation perfectly natural, as if by design—it _was_ by design. Evidently Orion Black was a trifle more adept at deception than his son.

She would have never known it for the complete fabrication it was if the man's wife hadn't said as much to her the night before.

The thought didn't even seem to cross Narcissa's mind. Mrs. Malfoy laughed, a charming, tinkling bell ringing through the dining room.

"I'm sure Papa would never _dare_ speak so of your late mother's people, uncle."

She turned to look at her friend, nudging her gently—a patient reminder that she ought to try to have her share in the conversation. Her uncle smiled, thinly.

"You'd be surprised what your father would dare, Cissy." Mr. Black replied, in a dry voice—though there was something of subdued humor in it. "Particularly when he's in his _cups_."

He and Narcissa shared a knowing look. Colette, who had been staring hard at the table cloth, suddenly remembered a detail from a conversation she'd had weeks before.

"My grandmother says that—that Madame Melania was very beautiful—but also very shy." She smiled, timidly. "So shy she didn't know it."

Orion looked around at Colette again. For the second time that morning the girl had the distinct impression she had surprised him.

"Well put." He turned his head down towards his plate. "She _was_ —very."

He looked sad, and when she noticed the far off look on his face—Colette saw the resemblance again.

In that moment he reminded her so much of his son, puzzling over the question of whether his parents were happy.

Fingers trembling, Ms. Battancourt turned back to her breakfast and busied herself with her eggs and Narcissa's light-hearted chatter.

When the house-elf came in a quarter of an hour later to announce the arrival of one Mrs. Lucretia Prewett—who was not, as far as anyone at the table knew, expected—Mr. Black abandoned his paper altogether. He was unfailingly polite, as always—but Colette thought he seemed a trifle put-out by the news. His brow furrowed, anticipatory annoyance crossed his face—he appeared to be steeling himself for his sister and her rather forward manners.

This ended up being justified, for no sooner had the servant said her name than he was practically bowled over by the woman herself.

"Watch yourself, Kreacher," Mrs. Prewett said, carelessly stripping off her gloves and handing them to the elf. "You nearly trampled my cloak."

Kreacher bowed and muttered a silky apology—but as soon as the tall woman had turned he shot her back a nasty look. Evidently, Colette thought, even among the _servants_ in her family, Lucretia Prewett, _née_ Black was an acquired taste.

"Ah. Lucretia—" Mr. Black, like Kreacher, was cool in his address. "This _is_ a surprise. What brings you here?"

Lucretia smiled fondly at her younger brother— _too_ fondly, as if she was trying to irritate him with her good cheer, which stood in painfully obvious contrast to his brusque welcome. His sister helped herself to a generous pour of coffee, while the elf attempted to remove her cloak—she half-swatting him away, half assisting with the task.

"A summons from your wife, 'Rion—what else?" Narcissa coughed loudly—it was at this moment that Lucretia noticed the presence of the two girls. She gave a theatrical start. "Well— _hello,_ Cissy. I wasn't expecting to see _you_ here—"

She blinked owlishly at the younger women, then back at her brother, confused.

"Narcissa and her friend—" He nodded in Colette's direction. "—You remember Ms. Battancourt?—are staying with us for the week. They'll be here until Christmas Eve."

His sister barely gave Narcissa and the French chit a second look, for she would not be deterred from her mission—namely discovering where the mistress of the house was.

Mr. Black lowered his coffee cup, eying his sister warily.

"Upstairs, I imagine—still in bed, sleeping late."

"You seem _unsure_ about that, Orion." His sister smiled deviously and peered at him through her quizzing glass. "Don't you know where your wife sleeps?"

Her brother, already frosty, chilled to a subzero temperature.

"I'll go upstairs and _rouse_ her for you, if you'd like," he said, through gritted teeth. "Unless you'd prefer to check yourself, and spare me the trouble."

"Of course I wouldn't." She settled herself into a chair next to him—not being one to bother waiting for an invitation. "I would never dream of butting into your—domestic arrangements."

Mrs. Prewett seemed amazingly immune to the daggers shooting from her brother's eyes, and when she noticed Colette watching her, gave the girl a saucy wink. Mr. Black tossed his napkin on the table with rather more force than he might've and stood up.

Hastily, Colette followed suit.

"Madame Black is—not upstairs." Orion turned, mid-step towards the door. "She—left the house early this morning. She did not say where she was going, only that she would be back—sometime around nine, I believe."

All eyes turned to Colette. It was the fullest and most coherent thought she'd managed to get out in Orion's presence all morning.

"And _you_ know this because—"

"—I ran into her on the stairs. I had gotten up very early to use the washroom. She was…just walking out."

She even managed to say it without going pink. Mr. Black sat back down, slowly—he and his sister exchanged identical looks of shrewd curiosity.

"So—Burgie's out early and hasn't told anyone where she's going." Lucretia took another long sip from her cup. "Very odd. Where _could_ she be?"

"You could always ask her when she gets back," her brother suggested, coldly, folding out his newspaper again. "I find, on the whole, that speaking to the person of interest _directly_ is a better course than _idle speculation_." He shook out his paper. "It leads to far less mischief and silly prattle."

Lucretia let out a hoydenish snort. She turned her head towards Narcissa and her friend, obviously amused.

"Your uncle has decided to spend breakfast moralizing to us on the evils of gossip."

"Better that they learn _now_ ," Orion said, over the muffled giggles of at least one of the young ladies. "Or they might wake up one day and find themselves to be women of fifty who don't know when to mind their own business."

"They might," Lucretia agreed, cheerfully. "If they do, I'm sure they'll be excessively diverted, at any rate. _I_ certainly have been."

Orion bristled but said nothing. Colette looked at Narcissa, alarmed—but found her friend unperturbed by the open hostility between her uncle and his sister.

"Don't mind them," Narcissa murmured, into her ear. "It's just how they are. My father says they've been like that since they were children."

That's right—it had been mentioned to her before that the Blacks were all cousins, and so Narcissa's papa had known his brother-in-law since childhood. Which meant, of course, that Mr. and Mrs. Black had also known each other their entire lives.

 _"Well, they're second cousins, he's four years_ younger _than she is, and it was an arranged marriage…"_

Colette groaned internally. She could have slapped herself in the face.

Tired of the conversation—Colette had a sneaking suspicion that Lucretia could have gone on happily provoking him for hours—Mr. Black pulled out his pocket watch to check the time.

"Walburga will be back soon—she probably thought you'd be late, which is why she told you to hurry." Orion slipped the watch back into the front pocket of his robes. "Would you like to wait in the parlor—or in the drawing room?"

His meaning was clear: he wanted her out of the dining room and his hair. Mrs. Prewett ignored this pointed question altogether in favor of leaning back in the chair, quite comfortable right where she was.

"Out early. I wonder…" Lucretia tapped her index finger on her chin. "Perhaps she's paying a visit to the—recently discovered property."

Mr. Black, who had buried his face in in his paper again, abruptly flung it down on the table and threw his sister a sharp look of warning.

"What is she talking about, Uncle Orion?" Narcissa asked, perplexed. " _What_ recently discovered property?"

Narcissa's uncle did not have a chance to answer his niece's query, for Lucretia was only too happy to speak up herself.

"You aunt and uncle have been lately made aware of a—" Her cheek dimpled. "—A hitherto unknown, ah—Black _holding_. Here in London, can you imagine? Hiding right under their noses."

"A house—in London, that belongs to us?" Colette couldn't believe Narcissa was unaware of the heat radiating from her uncle's glare, but she was too busy gaping at Lucretia to notice it. "Where?"

"In _Lisson_ —"

"—' _House'_ would be a generous word for what we are speaking of," Orion cut his sister off, coldly. The same anger of the night of the party was now coming off him in waves. "I would describe it as more of a _hovel,_ frankly."

"But—how could such a thing have been overlooked?"

"It was less overlooked than—misplaced," Lucretia said, amused. "Almost as if it wandered off all its own."

Colette's eyes widened. A sneaking suspicion crept over her—she thought that she knew _exactly_ what Mrs. Prewett was speaking of—and that the long lost 'Black holding' was not, as was to be supposed, a recently discovered deed of ownership for a house in London.

So—Mrs. Prewett knew the secret, too.

"It's a small matter," he explained to Narcissa, sounding normal again. "Just a trifle. In _any_ case—" Mr. Black cleared his throat significantly. "I cannot think your aunt would have gone _there_. As I'm sure you know, Lucretia, she doesn't care at all for the place."

Lucretia smiled, mysteriously.

"No, she's hoping—you'll consolidate it back into the main estate in short order."

Her brother returned her smile, thinly.

Narcissa, bored by the cryptic conversation between her uncle and a distant kinswoman she had never much cared for, turned to start chatting with her friend about their plans for the day—and found Colette frowning and looking puzzled, her ear tilted toward the head of the table so that she could catch the rest of what the older two were discussing.

"While we're on the subject, Lucretia," Orion said, in a lower voice—Colette noticed an odd forced conviviality on his tone that didn't suit him at all. "I understand you expressed an interest in seeing— _that place_."

"I did."

"Well, as it happens, I'm heading over there today." His eyes gleamed. "I'd be happy to take you."

"Well, that's very obliging of you, 'Rion." She smiled, knowingly. "But I shall have to decline."

"No longer game?"

"Not at all." Lucretia's voice was brimming with amusement. "I just think going with _you_ would take all the fun out of it."

Mr. Black's eyes narrowed.

"You haven't mentioned anything about… _the holding_ to our father, by any chance, have you, Lucy?"

Narcissa was chattering in one ear—Colette nodded, sure that whatever plan for luncheon she'd agreed to would probably be alright, as long as she could hear the rest of this conversation—

"Of—of course not." A small hesitation—the first false step Mrs. Prewett had made. "What on earth makes you think _that_?"

"It's been suggested to me by…certain interested parties," he said, voice tight. "In _any_ case, I will remind you that _I_ will inform him of it in my own good time, and I want you well out of the business for a reason."

" _What_ interested parties?" She tapped the edge of her quizzing glass on the table. "Who is telling tales about me to—"

This fascinating conversation—and Colette's first foray into the art of eavesdropping on Blacks who think they are speaking in an unbreakable code when they are decidedly not—was interrupted by the arrival of the woman of the hour.

Though her husband stood up for her, and the two young ladies murmured polite hellos, Mrs. Black only had eyes for her cousin. She marched into the room, still wearing her fur-trimmed cloak, a large stack of letters clutched in one fist—and made an immediate beeline for Lucretia.

"Burgie! Wonderful." Lucretia stood up—her coffee cup forgotten. "I came as soon as I got your note."

"On time, for once." Walburga's eyes passed over her husband without comment in favor of the two younger witches. "Good morning, girls. How did you both sleep?"

Was she imagining it, Colette thought, or was that question directed at _her_ more than Narcissa?

"Like a dream, auntie!" Narcissa smiled and turned to her friend. "Isn't this _just_ the change of scene we were looking for, Colette? London has _so_ much more scope for entertainment than the country."

Mrs. Black raised an eyebrow.

"Do you agree, Ms. Battancourt?" Colette looked up from her plate—what choice did she have, at such a direct address? "Do you find London more… _entertaining_ than you did Wiltshire?"

"I try to find enjoyment wherever I am, Mrs. Black," the French girl mumbled. Narcissa frowned and nudged her—she was being far too pert, didn't she realize? "That is—I don't know England well enough to speak from my…my personal experience. But I'm sure Narcissa is right."

"Hm. Well—" She tilted her head and considered the girl. "We'll have to make an _effort_ to see that you continue to _enjoy_ yourself while you're staying with us."

"I'm grateful for all the attentions you've paid me, Madame," Colette replied, forcing her voice to be steady and calm—both the last adjectives she would have used to describe her current mood.

Walburga nodded, though her eyes lingered on the French witch, who managed to get a surprisingly bold look in before her hostess turned to the other end of the table. Her husband, who had stopped pretending to read his paper and was watching this exchange with interest, did not blush or look away from Mrs. Black—though she was still pretending not to notice him.

She circled to the head of the table and stopped at Orion's right side. The act of handing him the day's post forced Mrs. Black to make eye contact with her husband. The 'good mornings' they exchanged were extremely polite, if a bit formal.

"You were out the door early," Orion remarked, flipping through his letters. "Do you want the elf to make you something fresh?"

"I've already eaten."

"Here or— _elsewhere_?"

He looked up at her, an unsaid question in his face—but she merely clucked her tongue and ignored it in favor of scrutinizing his appearance. Her sharp eyes narrowed in on the front of his robes.

"You have eggs on your shirtfront, Orion," Walburga observed, dryly. "Quite slovenly. You should take more _care_ when you eat."

He looked down and began a torrent of muttered expletives, but before Orion could protest the action, Walburga was dabbing at the spot with her wand and a napkin she'd conjured from thin air, lest the stain set. When he looked up from the spot on his robes, embarrassed, to thank her, she had already brushed past him and walked to the other side of the table.

Narcissa glanced up from the note her aunt had handed her a moment before to remark on how thoughtful and sweet Lucius was—when she noticed the direction in which her friend stared. Colette was eyeing the dwindling pile of letters in Aunt Walburga's hand with anxiety and expectation in equal measures.

"Auntie?" Walburga looked around, absently. "Is that _all_ the mail? I think Colette is expecting post."

Mrs. Black looked up from a party invitation she'd been carelessly perusing.

"… _Oh_?"

She rounded on the younger girl, who blushed bright scarlet under her gaze and stammered something incoherent. Narcissa pinched her under the table.

"Is that true, dear?" Walburga's voice was pointedly sweet. "Are you _expecting_ something?"

Colette forced herself to meet Mrs. Black's gaze directly.

"I—I thought I might be."

The older woman nodded, knowingly.

"Well—don't worry. It may yet turn up." She turned her head towards the only man in the room. "We sometimes get _second_ post, don't we, Orion?"

Mrs. Black's husband didn't hear the question—he was staring down at the top letter he'd opened, reading and re-reading the words over again so intently that he was barely aware of the gaggle of women staring at him.

Lucretia coughed loudly, and he looked up, startled. Mr. Black folded the parchment and tucked it safely in his breast pocket. Colette noticed the odd expression on his face—smooth and absent emotion. She was beginning to see a pattern with Mr. Black and his relations—an innate, chameleon-like ability to close themselves off to outside scrutiny, become a blank slate.

The act of putting on the mask was its own form of revelation, however.

She would now be thinking and wondering about whatever was in _that_ letter, on top of a myriad of other questions.

He stood up, abruptly.

"If anyone needs me, I will be in my study." He walked to the door, no small amount of determination in his gait. At the threshold, Orion turned back to address his sister. "You _will_ let me know if you change your mind, Lucy. About the visit."

Mrs. Prewett waved at him, cheerful and mischievous sparkle still in her eye.

"I shan't, 'Rion," she replied, in a sing-song voice. "But I thank you all the same for being so agreeable as to offer."

He gave his sister one last suspicious look before saying his goodbyes and departing from the party of women.

Lucretia, just as happy to see the back of her brother as he was to leave them, turned to look at Walburga with a cheerful expression.

"Shall we, Burgie?"

She jerked her head to the door, indicating that she was eager to discuss whatever pressing business it was that had roused her so much earlier than she normally got out of bed—but Walburga was staring between the two witches in her charge with newfound suspicion.

"Remind me, Narcissa—what do you and Ms. Battancourt plan on doing before you meet your husband and his friends for the theatre tonight?"

Narcissa fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly and smiled.

"We aren't sure. Colette and I haven't had a minute alone together to talk it all out—we were about to go back to my room to chat."

"You mean you haven't spoken yet today?"

Colette stared up into Mrs. Black's eyes—she had the amazing ability to seem as though she could petrify one solely by the force of her glance.

It had certainly felt that way last night.

 _"You and Narcissa seem to have grown very close in a short time."_

 _Mrs. Black, Colette was beginning to realize, had a talent for imbuing ordinary, everyday things with a sinister air._

 _"There's nothing wrong with that. It's good to have female companionship. No doubt it makes you feel you can…confide in her."_

 _If her tone was anything to go by, this was almost as dangerous as Colette's mother thought girls traveling alone was._

 _"I feel obliged to tell you that…to do so about tonight or—my_ son _would be a mistake."_

 _Walburga's eyes glowed in the dark._

 _"Sirius Orion's situation is somewhat—irregular." She tucked hands behind her back. "You—may have heard rumors about it. As_ I _cannot feign ignorance of these falsehoods, I imagine they may have even—reached France by now."_

 _They had, of course—but no person had been quicker to confirm them than Sirius Orion himself—though Colette thought that was the last thing the woman wanted to hear now. Her pacing quickened—she seemed very agitated, waving her arms about with more passionate feeling than Colette had ever seen from a woman of her age and standing._

 _"It is all distortion and slander, of course. Our family has certain traditions that we hold to—such as how inheritances work. My eldest son has been…away from the family for some time, but as far as_ that _goes, his position has_ never _changed."_

 _"But Narcissa said—"_

 _"—Whatever she told you, it was wrong," Walburga interrupted her, bluntly. Colette's fingers twisted around in the bedcovers. "It isn't her place to speak on such things, anyway. She's a woman—witches shouldn't trifle in the affairs of wizards. What did she tell you?"_

 _"Nothing—I'm sure Narcissa didn't mean any disrespect to you, ma'am—"_

 _"She told you my younger son is going to inherit, didn't she?"_

 _Colette's silence was deafening. Walburga sighed._

 _"Yes—well, that_ is _what most of the family believes," she was forced to concede, though Colette could tell it was immensely annoying for her to do so. "I'm sure Narcissa wishes it true. She's always been fond of Regulus, and she and Sirius never quite…" She waved her hands about vaguely, as Colette was noticing she often did when struggling to describe her son. "…Got on."_

 _She frowned and shook her head._

 _"Make no mistake. My husband is working on reinstating him. It is a—delicate business, and must be handled with finesse. With discretion—you might even say with…secrecy."_

 _The young girl was transfixed—when Walburga got going she truly was mesmerizing. Terror and fascination were racing each other at a break-neck pace in Colette's breast; her heart was beating like the wings of a bird trapped in an old church steeple._

 _The older woman turned sharply on her heel._

 _"If the thing is done properly, he will be the undisputed heir to one of the oldest and wealthiest pureblood families in Europe—and, I hardly need add—a very eligible match."_

 _Colette felt her face burning._

 _"Of course, it could just as easily be ruined—say, by a foolish witch who doesn't know her own mind pouring silly stories into the ears of her friends."_

 _A vice seemed to be tightening around her chest. Her shoulders began to tremble again—a slight tremor, not the petrification of earlier, but certainly not a comfortable feeling._

 _Mrs. Black must've thought her fear made her simple._

 _"Let me be plain: if you mention_ anything _about the events of last night and tonight to Narcissa,_ hers _will not be the only friendship you lose."_

Walburga looked between them, expression thoughtful.

"Why don't you girls go into the drawing room to talk? I only called Lucretia to ask her what she thought of two of my new gowns—it won't take long, and then we'll join you." She gave Colette a pleasant, matronly smile. "Do you play the piano-forte, Ms. Battancourt?"

The girl did not start as being addressed by Mrs. Black this time. In fact, her look up at the forbidding matron was clear-sighted and unblinking.

"A little—and not as well as my mother would like."

Colette's answer came out far more sarcastic than she had meant it. Her immediate instinct was to apologize for her pertness, and when she opened her mouth to do so—she froze.

A little voice—one she recognized muttered in her ear.

 _"She has the worst temper of any matron in this country by a mile. It's a sight to behold."_

Just the thought of _him_ —and the memory of his good-tempered grin as he had said those words, with a careless brashness she could not have dreamed of for herself—warmed Colette's insides with the kind of courage that put the muscatel she'd imbibed the night before to shame.

If _he_ could joke—if he could look in his mother's face and dare to laugh—than so could _she_.

Walburga Black stared at her, blank-faced. Lucretia, standing behind her, was clearly fighting off a laugh, while Narcissa, at her right, seemed alarmed—but then Mrs. Black surprised all three. She nodded and smiled faintly.

"Well—when we come back in, you can show us first-hand." She patted the girl on the shoulder. "And we'll see just how _high_ your mother's standards are."

"They are— _très élevé._ "

Her mama was always telling her not to mix English and French.

 _"Young ladies who go to foreign lands to find a husband on their mothers' orders are generally thought to be_ good girls _."_

Colette's brow furrowed. Right now, quite frankly, she didn't care a _fig_ what her mother thought.

"That's good." Mrs. Black lifted her viselike grip from the girl's shoulder. "It means she wants the best for her daughter. If _I_ had been so lucky as to been blessed with a daughter, _I_ would as well. Don't I always say that?"

She turned to Lucretia, who was watching this _tête-à-tête_ with vague interest. Though she was impatient for news from her sister-in-law, and eager to quit the room with haste—Mrs. Prewett also knew that Walburga did not have the slightest desire for a daughter, disliked most other women as a general rule, and had never expressed anything even _remotely_ resembling that sentiment to her or anyone they knew.

 _What are you up to, Burgie?_

She considered the Battancourt wallflower, intrigued, now—so much so that Walburga had to nudge her.

"I _said_ , aren't _I always saying that_ , Lucretia?"

She looked between the two two girls, and then back at her cousin. Walburga had a positively shark-like expression on her face.

It was ghastly.

 _Interesting._

"Oh—yes." Lucretia's eyebrows flew up into her hairline. "All—the time."

Lucretia managed one last head swivel in the girl's direction before Walburga herded her out of the room.

The two witches, left to their own devices at last, stared at one another.

"What was _that_ all about?"

Ms. Battancourt fixed her face in an expression of polite puzzlement.

"What—do you mean?"

Playing naive was one of her old standbys for a reason, Colette thought—people believed it easily enough of her—for she _was_ unworldly most of the time.

She felt safe in thinking that _this_ was the rare case where she most definitely understood better what was going on than Mrs. Malfoy did.

Narcissa scoffed.

"Oh, honestly— _you_ know." Colette's blue eyes widened—normally Cissy found her friend's guileless expressions fetching—this morning she was irked by them. "All the hullabaloo between the three of them, Lucretia and the rest. And don't you wonder where my aunt went off to this morning by herself?"

Colette smiled, sheepishly. She didn't have to wonder.

"Not particularly." The French witch twisted her fingers around her wand in her lap. "That is—we shouldn't speculate idly or—gossip. That is what your uncle said to us. It isn't our…business to know."

Narcissa gave her a look that reminded Colette painfully of her cousin Antoinette—the one who never gave up the chance to look down her nose at the Battancourts' dull country mouse.

Not wanting her worth to go down in her friend's eyes, she decided to take another tact.

"Anyway—weren't _you_ the one who said that wizards find curiosity an unattractive quality in a witch?"

Narcissa's shoulders dropped.

"Oh—that's right." The blond tilted her head, amused at her own wisdom. "I _did_ say that, didn't I?"

Ms. Battancourt nodded. She crossed her fingers under the table in the hopes that Mrs. Malfoy would not continue steering the conversation into these tricky and dangerous waters.

Cissy leaned back in her chair, in a rare unladylike posture. She took a bite from a pear on the table and chewed it thoughtfully.

Finally, deciding it was not worth the mental exertion at this hour of the day, she gave a careless shrug.

"Oh—well, whatever it is, we'll find out about it sooner or later. I'm guessing by Christmas." She laughed and scooted around in her chair to address her friend more intimately. Mrs. Malfoy put both hands on Colette's shoulders and squeezed—a little too hard to be completely affectionate.

"One thing you'll have to get used to about our family—there's always some scheme afoot."

Colette stiffened under her touch—Mrs. Malfoy noticed and let go. A look of concern crossed Narcissa's haughty face, but Colette had already turned back to her porridge, and so she couldn't ascertain if the anxiety she'd seen in the girl's heart-shaped face had passed or not.

"Do these things—usually come out?"

"Oh yes—we're a very tight-knit family, you know—" Narcissa rose from the table, deep blue day dress billowing out under her, and beckoned for her friend to follow her to the drawing room."—And not very good at keeping secrets from each other _at all_."

* * *

The master bedroom of Number Twelve was the largest of the private rooms in the house, with the oldest and handsomest furniture by far, and more than enough space for entertaining—should one have the need for private conversation. This feature had been useful for more than one mistress of the house, for Blacks were not known for keeping to their own business.

Lucretia bolted the bedroom door behind her—one, two, _three_ locks—before turning around.

Mrs. Black stood at the foot of her enormous bed—practically vibrating with coiled energy. She did not invite her sister-in-law to sit down on the duvet sofa in the corner, or call for tea to be made—the anticipation of this moment had robbed her of speech.

"Now—what is all this _about_ , Burgie?"

Walburga smiled, widely. It was the smile of the triumphant, the conquering king returned from campaign abroad, ready to lord his treasures over the peasantry.

"I have done it," she said, simply.

"Done what?"

Walburga hummed happily to herself and—great gracious _gods,_ was she leaning against the bedpost and rocking back and forth on her heels? She hadn't done _that_ since she was a girl of eleven.

"You said I couldn't—" She leaned forward, her eyes glittering strangely. "—And I _did_."

"Don't make me play a guessing game, Walburga. You know I _hate_ guessing games."

"—And in less than a day!—"

"For that matter, _you_ hate guessing games."

"No one should doubt me," she babbled, unaware of her cousin's growing anger. "Everyone does, and look where it gets them. If I had a sickle for every time someone doubted me—"

"—I mean it, Walburga!" Lucretia interrupted, coldly. Her friend froze, mid-crow. "If you do not make yourself plain, I tell you—I shall march out that door and back to Buckinghamshire until you are ready to speak _sensibly_ to me."

Lucretia put her hand on the doorknob, and raised her wand to open the locks again. Now it was Mrs. Black's turn to scowl. She was torn between her annoyance that Mrs. Prewett refused to play along, and her own general lack of patience at not being understood.

The latter won out, in the end.

"That won't be necessary. You do not need to leave—in a _pet_." Walburga plucked at her sleeve, haughtily. "If you are in such a hurry, I'll be brief. I would hate to—detain you."

Lucretia's expression softened, and she took her hand off the doorknob.

"So, tell me—" Her voice was cheerful again. "What is it you've done, exactly?"

"Found a solution to my problem."

"Which one?"

"The—the very _delicate_ one that we discussed yesterday." Her cheeks flushed. " _You_ remember."

Lucretia's eyebrows flew up into her hairline.

"Oh!" She clasped her hands together and stepped into the room, face alight with interest. "You mean you found someone _already_?"

The smugly pleased smile returned, and Mrs. Black nodded towards the door. It took her sister-in-law a moment to understand the meaning—and another to let out a loud scoff and throw her hands into the air in disbelief.

"Oh, Walburga— _really_! You cannot be serious." Lucretia crossed the room and collapsed on the gigantic four-poster. "You _don't_ mean that mealy-mouthed wallflower that Narcissa has taken in hand?"

"I do."

Lucretia shook her head dramatically.

"She is exactly the sort of well-bred _little wisp_ that I was trying to steer you away from." Lucretia snorted. "Granted—as a daughter-in-law, I can see the appeal for _you_. That Battancourt girl seems timid and in awe of everything she looks at. She'd probably be easy enough to puppet from the shadows."

"There is more to her that meets the eye," Walburga said, firmly.

Lucretia blew air out of his her lips in an unladylike snort.

"I'll need proof of _that_ before I allow you to crow over me in triumph."

Walburga offered her a devious smile—the smile of a snake.

"Fine. I'll prove it." She straightened up, and called out, in a clear and authoritative tone. "Kreacher!"

The elf appeared with a loud _CRACK._ Lucretia started at the noise—a lifetime of it, and she'd never gotten used to the comings and goings of house-elves. She had not at all been sorry to see the back of elf magic when she married her husband—who, despite coming from a family as old as her own, had no patience for what he described as the 'fripperies' of magical life. If his father had ever offered Ignatius an elf as a servant, Lucretia knew nothing of it, and she could not imagine him accepting. They lived a very retiring life—what use would one of those grubby urchins be to _them_?

This _particular_ elf's mother had been the primary caretaker of the house when Lucy was a girl, and she thought _this_ creature just about as simpering as its mama had been. But the arrangement suited Walburga well enough—he was looking up at her with an adoration that bordered on the obscene.

If an elf's loyalty was anything to go by, Orion was not the total master of his own house.

"Well?"

Kreacher bowed and pulled a letter from out of the air.

"Just as Mistress said."

No sooner had she seen it than Walburga had snatched the missive out of the elf's grubby fingers.

She held the envelope up to the light, her eyes glowing with satisfaction at what she saw. Lucretia stood up and took a few steps towards her, peeking over her cousin's shoulder.

At first glance the letter appeared quite ordinary—a square of parchment like any other—but on closer inspection, Lucretia noticed something rather odd about it. There was no visible seal or crease at all—the heavy paper was completely smooth, with no apparent opening. It had been sealed by magic, obviously.

Without the right enchantment to open it, this message would likely burst into flame or dust, and be of no use to anyone.

"Clever." Lucretia's eyes darted to Walburga. The crease lines between her eyebrows were deep. "Whoever sent that made it so it can't be opened by _ordinary_ means."

Walburga nodded, absently, turning it around in her hands.

"I'm well aware." Walburga looked to the elf. "Where did you find this, Kreacher?"

"On Miss Cissy's friend's bed, Mistress," the elf said, a tad coolly. "Kreacher does not know how it could have gotten there—"

"We always air out the upper bedrooms in the mornings," Mrs. Black snapped, impatiently. "An enterprising owl could have gotten through, if it knew what it was about."

Kreacher would have never dared contradict his mistress, and so he merely nodded at this supposition.

His volunteering of his opinions on the subject seemed to have reminded Walburga that he was capable of thinking on his own. She narrowed her eyes and ordered Kreacher to leave the room until he was called. Clearly disappointed, he gave 'Mistress Lucretia' a resentful look before disapparating, as if his dismissal was _her_ doing.

Once they were alone, she turned her attention back to Lucretia and the letter.

"I confess—" Lucretia peered through her quizzing glass at the note. "I _am_ interested to know who is leaving her notes on her pillow."

"The bed—the bed—what is near the bed in that room…" Walburga muttered to herself. She turned on the spot to look at her own.

The silver eyes fell on the bedside table: she froze, like a puma that has spotted its prey.

"A- _ha_."

A gigantic pitcher of water lay on the table. Lucretia knew it at once—there was a set of them, one in every bedroom—gigantic crystal monstrosities that had been enchanted to refill every time they were emptied. They were a wedding present of Melania's—in a bit of pique when she was four she'd emptied one over Orion's head and nearly drowned him.

"I wonder…" Mrs. Prewett watched with interest as her sister-in-law walked around the end of the bed and towards the bedside table.

Walburga's shrewd eyes darted between the letter and the water's surface.

Without hesitation she dunked it into the pitcher.

"What in the world—"

Mrs. Prewett's mouth dropped open in astonishment—when her cousin pulled the letter back out of the water, drops rolled off it in rivulets—and with these droplets, the glittering concealment charm melted away, revealing the real letter—a piece of folded, plain parchment sealed with cheap tape.

The effect of the magic was somewhat spoiled by the final presentation, Lucretia thought, wryly. Still—it was cleverer than most attempts she'd seen to get a clandestine letter to a female. There was no telling whether the Battancourt girl would've figured it out, of course.

"That's an elegant spell," she complimented, brightly. "Very clean—and it doesn't require magic to break. I suppose one could knock a glass of water onto it at a table in mixed company and make it appear an accident."

Walburga was too busy funneling off the last of the moisture and tearing the letter open to pay mind to her friend's compliments of the magic that had been employed to conceal the message within.

The second her eyes hit the page a smile of grim satisfaction spread over her lips.

"I knew it! You wanted proof—" To Lucretia's surprise, Walburga shoved the letter in her hand. "Read _this_."

Lucretia smoothed out the letter, sparing her sister-in-law a glance meant to convey her skepticism. It was true—the fact that the Battancourt girl was receiving secret letters did make her marginally more interesting—but that didn't make her any less of a long-shot candidate in Burgie's marriage schemes, if the rumors she'd heard about the boy's wildness were true.

Her eyes darted down to the header, which had the date and a salutation, before—

"Out _loud,_ Lucretia. Read it _out loud_!"

Mrs. Prewett looked up from the message, amused to find her friend glowering at her and tapping her well-shod foot on the carpet.

She smirked. The light was dim in here—it looked as though Orion and Walburga hadn't drawn the curtains open in years—and it amused her that after all this time, Burgie was _still_ in denial about her growing far-sightedness. She'd probably taken one look at the parchment and realized she couldn't read a word of it.

Of course, her sister-in-law's vanity was such that she would sleep in the _dirt_ before admitting she needed reading spectacles.

"Have you grown fond of my dramatic recitations, Burgie?" She tilted her head in faux-innocence. "I didn't think you cared for them."

Walburga's look was withering, and so—her cheek still dimpled with amusement—Lucretia pulled out her own _pince-nez_ glasses and held the parchment a comfortable distance from her face.

 _"Dear Mademoiselle Battancourt—"_ She paused and read on, silently—her eyes, widened. "Oh, my—well, this _is interesting_ —" She looked up. "Walburga, did you _really_ —?"

"—You can read the whole thing out, and _then_ give me your unwanted opinions, Lucy!"

"Oh, _very_ well, very well—all the fun _you_ are—" Vexed, Mrs. Prewett shook her head, and upon clearing her throat, read out the body of the letter:

 _Dear Mademoiselle Battancourt,_

 _What a night! Can you believe it, I think it was bad luck that thwarted us in the end—it was a fluke that we were spotted out the window, and I remain convinced that if not for_ _that_ _you would have gotten back in the house without incident. I hope this minor setback won't discourage you from future excursions, and that you are recovering from the shock(s)? Was the dragon very hard on you? Report has reached me here—and by all accounts you seem to have handled her well. I'm impressed—and more grateful than I can say._

 _In honor of that gratitude—and as I gather the Kneazle is out of the bag—I wanted a chance to explain myself to you in person. Please send by return owl, briefly, a rough outline of what you and Mrs. Malfoy plan to get up to today, so that I can contrive a way to "bump into you". I thought we could compare notes on how the evening turned out. I must confess to having a little anxiety over what might've been said to you, but I hope you will clear it up forthwith._

 _On the subject of our agreement re: your continued education—tomorrow I have an appointment at a place of prominent interest (I assure you, no grandfathers are allowed on premises or grounds, by strict decree). You must see it while you're here! Provided I am the one giving you the tour. Try to convince Narcissa to take you—or her aunt, though you mustn't make it look like it's your idea. I'll explain more when I see you._

 _I hope you aren't_ _too_ _put-out by what you must now realize has been weighing on my conscience for our brief but eventful acquaintance. Please reassure me. Being left in suspense is not my 'metier', as you French would say._

 _If I don't hear from you soon, I must tell you—I shall assume the worst. You wouldn't want that, would you?_

 _Don't worry about the owl—it'll find me._

 _Awaiting the requested owl with above information and in great interest,_

 _Your Friend, Sincerely,_

 _'N.S.'_

Lucretia was rarely shocked, but even she could not help herself.

"Well, if that isn't the most brazen, impudent and _outrageous_ thing I've ever _laid eyes_ on!"

Mrs. Black hardly batted an eyelash at the conclusion of this recitation—she seemed far less surprised by what she had heard than her cousin was. Walburga had her hands clasped before her, and wore the hard look of a woman who was still taking in and absorbing the contents of the letter.

Lucretia skimmed over it a second time. The meaning of the words became even more astonishing to her, now that she was over her initial shock.

" _This_ explains why I got your letter summoning me here at four in the morning." One mystery solved, at least. "Do I gather that you _caught_ that girl in an assignation last night with the _author_ of this—fascinating missive?"

Walburga looked stone-faced: though something impenetrable flickered behind her eyes.

"I _did_."

"But what _was_ he thinking, to send it _here_ —" She waved the letter about. "He _must've_ realized there was a chance this would be intercepted."

"I imagine he was almost counting on it."

Lucretia frowned. That made no sense at all.

"Then he's an utter fool—" Mrs. Prewett couldn't help herself—she laughed. "He can't possibly know who he's trifling with."

Walburga raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"Oh, he _does_ , I assure you."

Lucretia dropped the letter to her side.

"But Burgie—I cannot think a young man who knew _you_ would _dare_ refer to you as 'the dragon' in a letter he thought you might actually _read_."

Mrs. Black pursed her lips.

"If he were trying to _provoke_ me, he might." Her eyes glittered. "Trying to get me to _reveal_ myself."

This was so unusually cryptic for her that Lucretia could only stare. There were too many questions—so she hit on the first one her mind could think of.

"What does 'N.S.' stand for?" she asked, perturbed. "And why the _devil_ is it in quotes?"

Walburga's smile turned brittle.

"A joke—a boyish and silly one." She rolled her eyes. "It's the initials of that—that _Nord_."

She managed to infuse the word with more contempt than should have been possible to convey in a single syllable.

"The Nord—Mr. Svensson, you mean—from papa's party?" Walburga nodded, grimly. "You caught that girl out last night with _him_?" Lucretia turned toward the door, with newfound respect and distaste in equal measure. She tutted. "That beats all! You know, he's a notorious rake. I would not have pegged _her_ as fast at all—but she must be, if she was with _him_."

"She isn't," Mrs. Black corrected her, calmly. "She's quite innocent."

"But, Burgie, if she's carrying on with that _Nord—"_

"—She isn't carrying on with any Nords, Lucretia!" Walburga cut her off, annoyed. "If you ever actually _listened_ to what I said instead of _interrupting_ all the time, you'd already know that. The Nord _wasn't_ a Nord—he was an imposter."

"An _imposter_ —? But how—"

"—Polyjuice potion." Her fingers squeezed the four-poster. "He had it in a flask that he was drinking out of the whole night."

Lucretia gaped at her for a full fifteen seconds—and then she burst into an unexpected smile.

"A man in disguise—at papa's _birthday party_ , of all things!" Her eyes widened with delight. "What a _scandal_. I daresay he should have a _fit_ if he ever found out."

It would have been clear to anyone who knew either lady—or had eyes in their head to see—that Mrs. Black found Mrs. Prewett's flippant reaction to the evening's shocking events inappropriate, to put it mildly. She was taking the news of having met an intruder—for all she knew, a would-be assassin—with a frank calmness that her sister-in-law found rather unwomanly.

"That fellow was standing right next to us, bold as brass, and not _one_ of us were any the wiser—"

"—Except the girl," Walburga pointed out, deftly.

"—Except that girl," she repeated, softly. "Curious thing, that."

How the girl that Lucretia Prewett thought so _little_ of had noticed what _she_ had not was not a subject she cared to dwell on, in this moment.

"But Burgie—it's all well and good and very _interesting_ —but I can't see how this business helps _you_." Lucretia tapped her quizzing glass against her chin. "Unless I'm _missing_ something."

Mrs. Prewett was one of those rare few immune to the power of Mrs. Black's sarcasm, and so the withering look this comment received sailed right over her like a summer breeze.

"You clearly are." She shook her head. "You're missing the point entirely."

"I'll grant you're right about there being more to her," Lucretia conceded, in a grudging tone. "But I _still_ can't see Colette Battancourt as a viable candidate."

"Why not?"

"Well, dalliances with wastrels aside, she's still a wallflower." Lucretia tutted. "She had a book tucked into her reticule the other night. I may not have laid eyes on him in three years, but I cannot picture Sirius being too keen on a bluestocking."

Walburga's lips curled up in the smuggest smile she was capable of.

"He seems rather keen to me in that letter you're holding." Lucretia's hand fell limply to her side. "And when I had breakfast with him this morning, he certainly seemed _exceedingly_ keen to know what had become of her, after the night they spent together—the night I had, in his eyes, so 'rudely interrupted' when I caught them attempting to scale the side of my _house_."

The color drained from Mrs. Prewett's face, and she leaned on the bedpost for support.

"But then—this isn't from—?"

Walburga nodded, exasperatedly.

"So then—" She paused for dramatic effect. "That is to say— _Sirius_ was the _—_ "

"— _Obviously!_ "

Lucretia gaped at her for a full ten seconds, before letting out a most indignant noise.

"I take what I said _back_ ," she cried out, dramatically. " _You_ are most brazen, impudent and _outrageous_ thing I've ever laid eyes on, Walburga Black."

Both of Walburga's cheeks flushed crimson.

"You are too sly by half!" Lucretia waggled a finger in her cousin's direction. "You let me go on and on, and held back the most interesting part of this affair all to yourself—"

"—I thought you would figure it out when you read his letter aloud!" Walburga exclaimed, hotly. "It _is_ in your nephew's hand."

"What difference does _that_ make?" Lucretia asked, very indignant. "How should I know his handwriting? He hasn't written me a letter in a decade, and I believe the last one I had from him was very poorly spelled and said something like, 'Please send more biscuits, aunt.' Your son has never been a great correspondent." She eyed the letter with newfound interest. "At least, he wasn't one _then_ —apparently that's changed." She flapped the parchment in the air. "He's writing _very_ interesting letters these days."

"But not to his aunt."

Walburga's feline smile made far more sense, Lucretia thought—but that didn't make it any less obscene. The woman was obviously bursting at the seams, she wanted to spill all, and Mrs. Prewett, being a good-natured sort, was only too happy to oblige her.

"Now we come to the heart of it. You must tell me how _this—_ " She held out her nephew's letter. "—Came to be. And mind you don't leave anything out."

Mrs. Black's eyes glittered coldly, which said all Lucretia needed to know about her chances of getting everything from her sister-in-law—slim to none. But she was courteous enough at the request, and seemed paradoxically irked that Lucretia was asking and that she had waited so long to do so. Once Mrs. Prewett lead her over to the divan sofa and the two were comfortably settled, Lucretia soothed her irritation and coaxed her out of ill humor.

Mrs. Black explained, in as brief of terms as her sister-in-law would allow—for no story could go uninterrupted when Lucretia was listening to it—about the events of the previous two nights—the party, as Colette Battancourt had relayed it to her the night before, and the interception of the young witch and wizard's late-night tryst. Lucretia gasped (when she was supposed to) and laughed (when she was not)—and by the end was very glad indeed that she had gotten dressed before noon to come all the way to London and hear the thrilling tale for herself.

"Well, at _least_ this explains why Mr. Svensson didn't flirt with me," Lucretia remarked, when Walburga had finished her story. "I _was_ feeling put-out, to think of him preferring that Battancourt chit's company to mine."

"I doubt he would have enjoyed your forward manners much," Walburga said, dryly. "Even if you _weren't_ his aunt."

Lucretia laughed.

"No—apparently his tastes lie…" She looked down at the note again. "Elsewhere."

Her eyes darted back up to Walburga's. She considered her cousin, thoughtfully. There were many questions she could ask—there were many questions she had—but Lucretia also knew her friend well enough to guess how well most of them would be received.

"So…that girl, eh?"

Mrs. Prewett's tone suggested that, while she was fast coming around to the idea, she still found the possibility of such a bookish daughter-in-law for Walburga of all women amusing.

"What an…interesting prospect."

"Well, she would not have been my _first_ choice," Mrs. Black admitted, grudgingly. "But one must make do with what one is _given_."

Lucretia nodded—a fair point. Burgie was nothing if not resourceful—even with limited means.

"Is there any money there?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. I doubt she's got two sickles to rub together." She shrugged. "Orion says the family's coffers are empty."

"So—they're _desperate_." Lucretia's eyes sparkled with mischief. "All the better for you! No one likes in-laws who are too fussed."

Walburga glared at her—whatever difficulties she might've had with Sirius, she did not appreciate the implication that her son was not at the top of every mother and every _duenna_ in Europe's list of eligible husbands for their daughters or charges.

Lucretia held up the letter again.

"Well—I _will_ grant that he's taken a shine to her." Walburga's nose twitched in irritation at this meager concession. "But that is not the same thing as a formally contracted engagement."

Her cousin tossed her head dismissively.

"It could be nothing more than a passing lark," Lucretia pressed, her eyes carefully trained on Walburga, eager for any tells of what might be going on in her friend's singularly crafty mind. "How do you intend to fix his interest?"

Mrs. Black's lips broke into another smile.

"I have already begun on that front." She gestured towards the parchment still clasped in Lucretia's hand. "You have there the first fruits of my labors."

Mrs. Prewett gawked at her.

"You're taking credit for _this_?"

Walburga raised both eyebrows.

"When I saw him at breakfast this morning, I forbid him from seeing or writing to her," she said, slowly—taking pleasure in the words. "And expressed my deep disapproval at the idea of any further connection between them."

It took only a moment for the blow to land.

Lucretia closed her eyes, mock-pained.

"Oh, that poor, _foolish_ boy…"

Walburga's smile was unusually grim.

"He cannot resist the urge to defy me." Her eyes glinted, half-triumphant, half-exasperated. "Whatever I tell him, he _has_ to do the opposite."

"What do you intend to do? Trick him into _marrying_ her by pretending you disapprove of the match?"

Walburga scowled—Mrs. Prewett laughed to herself. If she thought that would work, Burgie probably would. Lucretia could well imagine her sister-in-law hurling insults at the Battancourt girl, while Sirius—he was still a sullen teenager in her mind's eye—defiantly walked her down the aisle.

The thought made her lip twitch.

"Don't be ridiculous." Walburga picked imaginary lint off her sleeve. "By the time it gets to that point, Sirius Orion will have more than _me_ to contend with, and it will be too late for him."

He'd already be caught in his devious's mother's snare.

Lucretia turned the paper over in her hands, idly.

"I think he may be onto you." She grinned, toothily. "There's a post-script I didn't notice, before."

She moved the letter out of Burgie's reach before her cousin could snatch it and read aloud,

" _P.S. If any nosy parkers who are_ _not_ _Ms. Battancourt happen to read this, I would like to remind them that claiming one understands a position is not the same thing as agreeing to do it. Also it is bad manners to read your guest's mail."_

Walburga's cheeks flushed red. Lucretia's cheek dimpled.

"Cheeky daring little scamp, isn't he?"

And one who knew his mother almost as well as she knew him. Of course, Sirius wasn't the only predictable creature in their family.

Her sister-in-law glowered.

"I told you he was trying to _provoke_ me."

"And it seems very much like it's on the verge of working." Her knuckles were white, gripping her wand in her lap. "In another second you'll be back over there, and your son will have a pair of matching boxed ears."

The Black matron breathed in and out a few times, forcing calm upon herself.

"That's what he wants," she murmured, still irritated—but with a cooler head than a moment earlier. "But it wouldn't do at all for what I'm planning. I told him that I trust he will behave himself, and that is what I intend to do. I will let him have his little—" Walburga sniffed, derisively. "— _Jest,_ for now."

"She who laughs last, laughs _best,_ eh?"

Mrs. Black gave her friend an annoyed look and settled herself back into the plush velvet of her divan. It was only then that Mrs. Prewett realized how close the angered mother had been to springing up from her seat and marching back to his flat to let her son know the _precise_ punishment for referring to one's mama as a 'dragon.'

Lucretia—knowing it was for this reason she had been summoned, and hoping to distract her from the provoking comments of her impudent nephew—tucked her arm in Burgie's, and inquired on the finer details of Walburga's scheme. Happy for the change of subject, her cousin matter-of-factly laid out her intentions for how the girls would spend the days leading up to Christmas, and where her son fit into those plans. In an rare show of restraint, Lucy refrained from comment until she was sure the other woman was done.

"Well, that is—quite an ingenuous plan," she remarked, truthfully. "Though—risky. It will be a triumph, if it comes off."

Mrs. Black smiled. She knew this.

"Of course—it relies on more than one thing you cannot entirely control."

She was referring to the girl. Walburga did not seem all that concerned on that front—Lucretia wondered at the confidences that had passed between them the night before that had her friend this sure.

 _Oh, to be a fly on_ that _wall…_

"I _am_ relying on her, it's true—and she may turn out to have less promise that it seems," she admitted. "The whole thing—may come to nothing. I might change my mind and decided it doesn't suit, after all."

It was a surprisingly clear-headed concession, coming from a woman who, in addition to being completely dogged in pursuit of her goals, was also a firm believer in fate and at her core, deeply superstitious. Lucretia watched this interesting new circumspect Burgie staring at her bed—at the curtains hanging over the sanctuary that had only had one occupant the night before.

"What will you do, then?"

"Find some…other solution, of course."

Lucretia's mouth drooped. An answer both too hasty and hesitant to be entirely believed. No—whatever Walburga might tell herself as consolation, she had put all her chips on this one square.

Her heart was in the game.

"At any rate, I certainly am not going to stand around and do _nothing_. And goodness knows I'm not going to leave it up to the two of _them_."

She couldn't help herself—Lucretia turned her head to hide the smile. Her friend's faith in the judgement of young people as regarded managing affairs of the heart was amusingly low, and—given Burgie's record where this subject was concerned—rather ironic.

 _Like mother, like son._

"Do you think she's _really_ up to snuff?"

"We shall see." Mrs. Black took the letter back and read over the words again—it was from the squint that Mrs. Prewett knew she really was reading. " _This_ will be the first test."

She summoned the elf again—Lucretia was sure he'd been waiting outside the door, like a diligent watchdog—and after resealing the letter with the same spell she'd just broken, handed it to her servant.

"Take this to the drawing room and give it to the girl," she ordered him, haughtily. "We will join you shortly."

Kreacher bowed and left them alone once more. In the absence of the letter, and because she could never resist the urge to press her luck, Lucretia decided to return to a subject that interested her far more than the marriage prospects of her nephew.

"Who was Mr. Klöcker, Burgie?"

Walburga became extremely interested in a painting on the wall across the room.

"What did you say?" she asked, absently.

"The other man, the one who came to the party with Sirius—Mr. Klöcker." She raised an eyebrow. "Do you know who he was?"

A cloud passed over Walburga's face.

"I haven't the faintest idea." She sniffed, coldly. "I assume Mr. Klöcker is Mr. Klöcker."

"Well, _I_ don't!"

And she didn't believe for one second that Walburga did, either.

"If you are _so_ interested in the subject," Walburga said, the color rising in her face, for she was unable to hide her discomfort at the turn of their conversation. "You should ask your brother. Orion knows _all_ about it, and I'm sure he'd tell you far more than he has _me_."

"Oh, darling—you aren't angry at him because he didn't tell you he'd caught Sirius—" Lucretia tutted. "You can't hold _that_ against him. If he'd said something to you _then_ , you _know_ you would have made a dreadful scene—"

"—That is not the _only_ falsehood Orion Black has told me in the past week, Lucretia Prewett!"

Walburga—in a state of agitation that had sprung from God knew where—leapt to her feet and crossed the room. Lucretia watched as her sister-in-law, arms wrapped around herself, stared determinedly at the wall next to her bedside table.

Her shoulders trembled with anger.

"…Everyone's husbands lie to them from time-to-time, dear." Facing the wall as she was, Lucretia could not see her expression, but she could tell from the way that Walburga stiffly held her shoulders that she was upset. "—And I'm sure _yours_ has better reason than most."

Mrs. Black sucked in a shuddering breath.

"I am—well aware of that," Mrs. Black said, her voice subdued. "I just don't—I don't like it when he does it in front of the children. It is not pleasant to think everyone is _conspiring_ against me."

"Nobody is conspiring against—"

"—Well, it certainly _feels_ like it!"

The witch fretted with her gown and still didn't turn around. Lucretia remained on the sofa, very still—expectant. If she gave Burgie a moment—

A moment passed—and then another.

"What is this _really_ about?"

Walburga shifted, uncomfortable, and peered out in the direction of the window.

"I have discovered _how_ Orion is getting him to behave." Another stiff pause. "And it's just one of the many lies he's told me."

The woman that uttered these words sounded small, almost vulnerable—though it would have been difficult for someone who didn't know her as well as Lucretia to discern that through her anger.

"He said it was a 'womanish fancy'—to my _face, and in front of them_ —and he knew it was true, all along. Insufferable, tiresome man."

"What did he know was true?" Lucretia pressed her, gently.

"Never you mind," Walburga muttered, darkly.

Lucretia clucked her tongue.

"Well, whatever it is—instead of _stewing_ on it," she said, in soothing tones. "You should say something."

Walburga sniffed.

"And give him the satisfaction of thinking I care what he thinks or does?"

 _You do care,_ Lucretia thought, her inner voice wry. _You care very much._

Mrs. Prewett sighed. Twenty-five years of marriage, and sometimes it seemed as if Walburga and Orion were still the unstoppable force and immovable object of their youths.

"Have you spoken to him about your plans with the girl?"

Walburga spun around on her heel. She looked herself again—or rather, she had her mask back in place.

"Certainly not!" She straightened up, the picture of regal, cold control. "Why should I tell him, when he's being so disagreeable? He'll probably spoil the whole thing."

She marched back over to the door, face flush with determination. Lucretia got hastily to her feet as this whirlwind of a witch strode past her.

"I'm not going to let him interfere."

"Burgie, you know you can't go on this way." She put a hand on Burgie's shoulder—her cousin stiffened at the touch. "You will have to tell him _eventually_."

Walburga would need his help and support to pull off her plan—and more importantly, she _wanted_ it. She had always leaned on him for support without even realizing.

Of course, Lucretia thought, there was _also_ the small matter of her being in such a rage that it was unlikely she'd be able to keep the source of her anger from him for very long.

Sirius's stubbornness and obstinacy had not come out of thin air, after all.

"Not yet!" Walburga jerked her shoulder and flung off Lucretia's hand. "And if _he_ can keep secrets from me with my son, then so can I."

She pushed open the door and glided out into the hall, her step as light and as quick as they'd been since she was a young girl. Mrs. Prewett sighed and followed closely at her heels—knowing full well that now was not the time to argue.

The picture of the events that had lead to this extraordinary situation was growing clearer, at any rate.

She had full confidence that by the end of the afternoon she would know all.

* * *

"Well, girls—have you made up for your plans for the day?"

As soon as her aunt and cousin ( _distant_ cousin—she was happy not to have to claim _too_ close a connection to Lucretia) arrived at the door to the drawing room, Narcissa looked up from the embroidery she'd been pretending to pour over.

"Oh yes—I think we have it all planned out, now, haven't we, Colette?"

The French girl, whose head was currently bent over a book, nodded. Her forehead went slightly pink. Narcissa turned back to her auntie, and happily chattered away about their engagements—the luncheon with her mama, the beauty salon, dinner with Lucius and his friends, and the concert—so many events that it would be nearly impossible for them to return to Grimmauld Place until very late.

"I'm sorry, aunt—I hope we can have dinner together _some_ night—"

Walburga made a polite, noncommittal promise to look at her calendar and check to see if they were free of commitments.

"—Oh! And Colette's letter _finally_ arrived." An afterthought—Narcissa wrinkled her perfect nose. "But then she knocked your flowerpot over and completely soaked it—poor thing. She says she couldn't make out a word."

Lucretia and Walburga exchanged a brief look. The letter poked out from the book, clearly—the Battancourt girl had stuck it between the pages.

"That is a shame. Perhaps if you take it upstairs, you will be able to…decipher it," Walburga said, blandly. Ms. Battancourt pushed the edge of the damp envelope further into the pages.

"Who was it from, dear?" Lucretia asked, slyly. "A secret admirer?"

The girl was remarkably clear-sighted when she looked up from the book.

"A friend." She tucked the novel out of sight. "I don't think it was all too important. Just a…trifle."

 _Oh_. So she was not _so_ biddable.

"If something important was said, a very _determined_ friend would, of course, write again."

 _That_ got a blush.

"About your plans, Cissy—" All three women turned to Mrs. Black. "If you don't have any tomorrow, I was wondering if you and— _Colette_." She delicately stressed the word, as if she was testing it out. "Might like another change of scene."

The two younger witches looked at one another, perplexed. Narcissa's aunt had a ready explanation on her lips.

"I am going up to Scotland to have lunch with Horace Slughorn, and I thought I'd offer to take you girls along."

Colette's looked up from the spot on the carpet, alarmed. Narcissa sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

"Oh, Aunt Walburga, really—Colette doesn't want to meet _him_." Cissy turned in her seat towards her friend, to confirm that her opinion on the subject was correct. "Slughorn's our old head of house, and he's a frightful bore, always going on and _on_ —"

"—He is a wizard worthy of respect, Narcissa," Mrs. Black scolded, without much heat. "And one who has a great interest in your welfare and would very much like to see you."

Narcissa tried to force herself to smile and failed.

"I find Sluggy _trés_ amusing in—small doses, at least," Lucretia observed, cheerfully. "Where are you meeting him?"

"In Hogsmeade, at _The Three Broomsticks_ —then we're walking up to the castle for luncheon."

Lucretia kept one eye trained on the girl. She fiddled with the edge of the letter still sticking out of the book, nervously.

"Slughorn aside—" Lucretia leaned back languidly on a cushion. "If she hasn't been there before, Ms. Battancourt might enjoy seeing Hogwarts, Cissy. Most people consider it a—" She suppressed a laugh. "—A _place of prominent interest_."

Colette's ears went bright pink. Narcissa, fixing a stitch in her half-hearted attempt at embroidery, hardly noticed.

"She went to Beauxbatons," she scoffed. "Compared to _that_ who wants to see Hogwarts?"

Mrs. Malfoy had very little sentimental attachment to her old school. She had not enjoyed the extreme climes of Scotland, and on the whole had left her education behind with little regret. Lucius was the only bright spot in all seven years—the only memories not tainted.

"Let Ms. Battancourt decide for herself, Narcissa," Walburga moderated, smoothly. When she turned to look at Colette, the girl had abandoned the book altogether. "How about it, my dear? Do you think you might find something to… _amuse_ yourself with, up in Scotland?"

Her smile was sweet. The girl audibly swallowed. Lucretia almost felt sorry for her—Narcissa must've been immune to it from a lifetime of exposure, but right now her aunt was staring down her little friend like a python would a rabbit.

"If Narcissa doesn't think it will be a pleasant excursion, I do not wish to—put her out."

The pause that followed this was a little too long to be comfortable.

"Well…"

Walburga clasped her hands together. The eyes that watched the girl—the girl, Lucretia was amused to see, that had abandoned her rabbit-like expression for something rather more like a mongoose—were flinty, and her smile turned brittle.

"…You don't have to decide _now_. You can spend the day _considering_ the prospect and tell me after the concert what you want to do."

She nodded at Lucretia. For a minute her cousin didn't understand why—until she saw that familiar narrowing of the eyes.

 _Ah_. It was time for her to go, was it? Lucretia got to her feet, happy to be escorted out of the house—whether she wanted to or not. Walburga, halfway to the door, called carelessly over her shoulder.

"Please let me know if you have any letters you'd like me to send for you."

"I will not have any more post today, Madame Black."

A quiet but unmistakably _firm_ voice. Lucretia's eyebrows flew up again.

Mrs. Black, whose hand was just then resting on the doorknob, looked over her shoulder and back at the girl. A look passed between them—but whether it was of shared understanding or confusion was unclear to Mrs. Prewett.

"I think _that_ one may have more of a mind of her own than we thought," she remarked, as the two women walked down the main staircase to the front door of Number Twelve.

She didn't add that she was beginning to like Colette Battancourt more and more because of it.

Walburga made a _tch_ sound in the back of her throat. Her expression remained inscrutable until the two women arrived at the door.

"She knows her part."

"But if she's not willing to play it, Burgie—"

Unconcerned, Walburga tapped her wand against the heavy iron latches of the door. Each lock unbolted of its own accord.

"I'm only asking her to be herself." The massive walnut door with the snake door knocker opened and swung forward, slowly. "It is not a taxing role, believe me."

Lucretia blinked.

"Then she—"

"—Is doing precisely what _I_ knew she would," she finished, airily.

Walburga lifted her wand to close the door, but before she could, Lucretia stopped it with her foot.

"You _want_ her to ignore his letter."

Surely _that_ smile must have been _illegal._

"Men don't like witches who are too eager."

Lucretia removed her foot, and the door creaked shut—the last look she got of Walburga could only be described as spider-like.

Lucretia shook her head as she started down the steps and to the park—a little fresh air would do her good—and it would give her time to think.

That poor boy and girl. Neither of them were prepared for what was to come.

Still—it would make for a rather entertaining Christmas.

And she did not intend to wait for the amusement to come her way.


	14. Chapter 14

_"_ _Sirius?" said Mundungus, who did not appear to have paid any attention this conversation, but had been closely examining an empty goblet. "This solid silver, mate?"_

 _"_ _Yes," said Sirius, surveying it with distaste. "Finest fifteenth century goblin-wrought silver, embossed with the Black family crest."_

 _"_ _That'd come off, though," Mundungus muttered, polishing it with his cuff._

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 14**

* * *

Colette held the letter in trembling fingers over the fire.

 _Just drop it…drop it in—you stupid idiot, open up your fingers and—let—it—go—!_

The inner voice, autocratic though it may have been, could not convince her body to obey, and at the last moment she pulled her hand back from where it had been dangling over the fireplace in her bedroom.

Ms. Battancourt clutched the letter to her chest protectively and sighed. She didn't have much time. Narcissa and she were to meet at the bottom of the stairs in ten minutes—her ill-gotten reward for begging off their immediate departure with a fib about a headache.

Well, it wasn't really a fib, was it? And didn't she have an _excuse_ for her aching temples?

Colette sank into the cushions of bed and smoothed out the damp parchment, rereading if for what seemed like the ten-thousandth time that morning. Her fingers traced over the words—even his handwriting was devil-may-care; the 'h' and 'l' forceful and erratic streaks across the page, as daring as the act of sending the note itself. He had mentioned the water charm to her on the motorbike ride to Grimmauld Place—offhandedly, along with half a dozen concealment spells he claimed he'd used to slip letters past his parents in the years that he had lived in this house.

She had thought Sirius was just showing off—now she realized he was giving her a _clue_.

Looking down at the only _slightly_ smeared letters, she could also see his mother was onto his tricks. But then again, if his postscript was anything to go by, Sirius suspected as much. Or perhaps he had only meant that as a joke to amuse Colette, for after what they'd been through last night, who would dare risk provoking Madame Black a second time? Of course, if it _were_ a bluff, it was a bad one—for Mrs. Black _had_ most certainly opened this before she had, and read it—and probably shared its contents with Mrs. Prewett, too—

Her head pounded trying to make sense of it all. Colette didn't know where to turn—nothing her parents or grandmother had warned her about English society had prepared for the _imbroglio_ she found herself tangled in.

And what she wanted, truly—the confidant she longed for— _he_ was completely out of reach.

Madame Black had assured of that fact in no uncertain terms.

 _"_ _Does your son know about any of this?"_

 _Colette had suffered in silence through much of Madame Black's 'instruction' to her—nodding or making monosyllabic replies wherever she could—but this one question niggled at her so that, even in her petrified state, the French girl could not stop herself from asking._

 _Naturally, the older woman had pretended not to understand._

 _"_ _I beg your pardon?"_

 _"_ _Does your son—does he know what you intend for him to—" She blushed. "—That is…what your plans are, for him?"_

 _If Colette had been expecting hemming or hawing, she was disappointed._

 _"_ _Of course not." A blunt reply, and Colette felt it like a lead weight dropped on her foot. "Why would he?"_

 _Colette tried to summon the last of her reserves of bravery—the plucky courage of a heroine from one of her books—and protest, but it was too late, for Madame Black—a stronger personality by far—was barreling on with that seemingly immutable force she always exuded._

 _"_ _Having spent an evening in his company—where you were no doubt exposed to many of his extremely foolish ideas about the world—do you imagine my son has the slightest notion of what I intend for him, and that if he_ were _—" She drew the word out, trilling the 'r.' "—He would compliantly obey?"_

 _She didn't say anything. She didn't need to._

 _"_ _No." Mrs. Black shook her head in pity. "I cannot understand why you would even ask."_

 _She recovered just enough nerve to blurt it out—_

 _"_ _I do not think—I do not think it_ right _to deceive him so."_

 _The older woman blinked at her—slowly_

 _"_ _You don't."_

 _"_ _I don't wish to offend—Madame Black, please—please do not ask me—" Her stomach curdled with embarrassment at the remembrances of what had been suggested to her this evening. "—I can't."_

 _She couldn't even explain what her own gibbering meant to herself, let alone to her hostess—for she had every reason to obey her without question. Colette waited for a blow, for anger, anything, but her chaperone remained very still and her face, emotionless._

 _"_ _You seem like an honest girl—one who doesn't like deceit."_

 _The observation was bloodless. It was not clear whether Mrs. Black viewed this trait as admirable._

 _"_ _You_ could _tell him," she continued, casually. "But I do not think you will. Would you like to know the reason?"_

 _Colette steeled herself for it._

 _"_ _My son is very bold—he can border on rash. No matter how_ dearly _you warn him not to, if you tell him what we have spoken of, the first thing he will do is confront me." She folded her hands in front of her, solemnly. "And when he does, I will know_ exactly _who it is that has broken my confidences."_

 _Her voice was as chilly as a glacier. Colette felt her insides freeze._

 _"_ _If_ that _happens, not only will you never see Sirius Orion again—" Colette bit her lip. "But I will personally guarantee that you are barred from the door of every respectable witch and wizard on this continent."_

 _Walburga Black finished this matter-of-fact explanation of her plans to ruin Ms. Battancourt with an airy shrug—as if daring the poor girl to argue, to accuse—to call her bluff._

 _Colette didn't think it was a bluff._

 _"_ _To tell him, knowing that—would be foolish indeed. Are you a fool, Ms. Battancourt?"_

 _"_ _I have been called one before."_

 _She cursed her honest tongue—to tell the truth, in such a moment—but Mrs. Black seemed surprised, even a little curious._

 _"_ _Really. By whom?"_

 _"_ _My mother, mostly. Some aunts." She pulled absently at her thumb. "My cousin Antoinetta, often."_

 _Madame Black offered her a cryptic smile._

 _"_ _Well—" She patted Colette on the arm—her curved nails dig in like the claws of a falcon. "Now would be the moment to prove them wrong."_

She was not a dishonest person.

She simply had no head for intrigue—and what Mrs. Black was proposing was a level of deception beyond anything Colette could have dreamed up for one of her stories.

Mrs. Black was right in her assessment of her French charge—Colette's first instinct _had_ been to tell Sirius everything—which is why she had so clearly and unequivocally let Colette know the consequences of that action.

Social ruination—the dashing of all Madame Battancourt's hopes for her. Well, it wasn't as if she hadn't done enough already to merit it.

 _Maybe,_ a treacherous voice said, _Maybe there was a small part of her that didn't_ want _to tell him…_

No, no—that wasn't right! She would never…and anyway, the entire idea of it was so—it was completely…and utterly…

Her stomach lurched when she remembered him smiling at her on the roof.

Colette stared down at the letter. Any sensible girl would burn it…but it was the first and only letter from a man she'd ever gotten.

 _And he was worried about her…_

She folded the note up and laid it on her lap.

This was a game, clearly—that much was clear enough, even if she was fuzzy on the rules. Mrs. Black had given her a choice—presented two sides of a chessboard. There _was_ another option open to her, however…

She could choose not to play.

 _I won't reply, and I_ won't _try to see him again._

She stood up, a sense of resolve deepening in her. She could obey Mrs. Black without violating her scruples—she had every intention of following her mother's directives for the rest of the trip, to keep her head down, to be demure. Colette didn't have to go out of her way to avoid her new friend—Britain was large enough that there was little chance she'd run into him a fourth time—but she didn't have to seek him out, either.

There was still Rabastan, at least.

She looked at Sirius's letter with regret, ran her finger along the edge of the parchment. It would go unanswered—for his own sake as much as her own.

Things were better this way.

Colette tucked it safely in her diary and out of sight.

* * *

"Back so soon, Bletchley?"

At the sound of his apprentice's familiar step, Mr. Burke looked up from the estate contract he'd been perusing.

The young man hovered at the doorway, waiting for an invitation into the inner sanctum. A week into his employment at Burke and Selwyn (M.L.S.) he had been informed that it was a presumption for a man of his social position to enter a room without the go-ahead.

Fifteen withering looks from his employer when he'd dallied at the door later and Bletchley was beginning to think that comment had been a test—one that he'd been failing ever since.

"Erm—yes, sir."

"And you had…success?"

"I—believe so, sir."

The old lawyer lifted one clawed hand and gestured, impatiently, that his apprentice should enter the room.

Bletchley closed the door behind him and approached the desk, nervously. Mr. Burke was surveying him with that old school don look that said he was about to give another of his many interesting 'lessons' on the legal profession.

He'd just as well have been filing old briefs.

Mr. Burke leaned back in his chair—a circumspect pose.

"We're going to try something different, Bletchley." He steepled his fingers. "I want you to paint a picture for me."

"Paint…a picture for you?"

Burke rolled his eyes.

"Set the scene." He looked up at the ceiling, his hard face thoughtful. "The…events of yesterday afternoon—I do not want a dictation. I want a _story_."

Mr. Bletchley stared helplessly at the employer his father had insisted would 'make him'. A story? Did Burke think he had a theatre performer for an clerk? What did _any_ of this have to do with the law?

Mr. Burke jerked his head down and stared—his mercurial desires overridden by his exasperation by the dullness of his soul human companion.

"Sirius Black, Bletchley—" Another impatient gesture. "—Tell me what he _did_ after he left the office."

The apprentice found himself on even footing again. That was a direct order, at least.

"Oh. Right—right, sir." He fidgeted slightly. "Well—he, that is—Sirius—"

"— _Mister_ Black," Burke corrected, quietly. "Unless you happen to be addressing him in front of his father, in which case you may refer to him as _Master_ Black."

He filed that rule of formality among the forty-five or so Burke had already told him (most of which he'd immediately either forgotten or mixed up) and continued.

"—Sirius Black—erm, _Mister_ Black, that is—left the office after your meeting—by all accounts in a rather agitated state. He immediately proceeded to Borgin and Burke's, across the alley, where he made several—unique purchases."

Anticipating the next question his boss would throw at him, Bletchley fumbled around in his pocket for the slip of parchment.

"—Among them was—" He read, squinting down at his own scribbling—blast, he could barely _read_ it—"A 17th century amulet from Damascus, a vial of—moonstone elixir and, most notably an—oriental dagger. One-of-a-kind, used for ceremonial purposes."

He looked up from the paper to see how his 'story' was being received by his employer. Mr. Burke appeared only mildly interested in the purchases of the young Black—and in his apprentice's retelling of the tale, even less.

Bletchley didn't wonder—none of this was new information for him. It had, after all, been Burke's own house-elf who had tailed Sirius Black for the entirety of the afternoon, and had reported it back to his master himself.

"How much was the knife?"

Bletchley read the sum off the paper. Mr. Burke whistled.

"A pretty knut! Our young friend must have expensive taste—" The wily old wizard's lip curled up. "Wouldn't you say, Bletchley?"

His apprentice wetted his lips with his tongue. This was a test— _any_ time Burke asked him for his opinion on any subject, it was a test.

He had an idea of what his employer was getting at, in this case.

"I—don't think so, sir." Burke tilted his head—amused and intrigued. The younger man shifted his feet. "Given that he was carrying a considerable amount of gold on his person that did not belong to him, and that the items are of a—specialized nature, my guess is that they were made on behalf of a third party."

"His father?" Burke supplied, dryly. "A fair guess. Pray, continue."

The apprentice allowed himself a small smile.

"The subject then left the shop, and made a point of exiting Knockturn Alley, where he bumped— quite literally—into a young witch."

Mr. Burke sat up straighter in his chair.

"You have her name?"

He nodded. He'd tried to get it yesterday, but at that point in the afternoon the waiter at the Jarvey Club who was Burke's informant had left for the day, so he'd had to return this morning to get the name.

"French. A _Miss_ Colette Battancourt of _the_ Battancourt family."

The name evidently struck a chord with Burke. He considered the information—and gave his apprentice a look that he saw so rarely he hardly recognized it.

Approval.

"Not much can be said of you, Bletchley—but at _least_ you know the French wizards. I suppose you went to school with them."

He grimaced. He had—not that any of the Battancourts in his year had ever given him the time of day. Their social set had been worlds apart from his.

"The two struck up a lively conversation over some dropped packages—there was an exchange of an object, a return of something misplaced—" Argo had been hidden far enough away that the substance of the conversation was still a mystery to him, but like his master, the elf had an uncanny ability to read nuance in the tone and gesture of the subjects of his interest.

"There was a prior acquaintance, then?"

"I think it likely, given that they spoke for several minutes, after which he walked her most of the way to the Jarvey Club, which she entered the dining room of at precisely twelve minutes past one, in order to meet for lunch—" He pulled out a napkin with quill scrawls on it. "—A Mrs. Malfoy and her aunt."

Bletchley looked sheepishly up from his notes.

"I, erm—I couldn't get the aunt's name, unfortunately."

Burke gave him a look of mild disdain.

"Oh, you needn't start groveling quite yet, Bletchley—she only _has_ one it _could_ be." Bletchley scratched his head, and his boss shook his head. "The lady our French witch dined with is Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy, _née_ Black—and the aunt in question is the Honorable Walburga Black, who in addition to being her father's sister, is—"

"—Sirius's _mother_?" Bletchley finished for him, all astonishment.

Burke nodded, deeply. His apprentice—who, not having been invited to sit down, was leaning against the back of the chair in front of his employer's desk—pondered this new information.

"This business grows murkier and more intriguing by the minute," Burke remarked, sitting back in his chair.

"Does it, sir?" His apprentice scratched his chin. "I'm not sure I can see my way to it. Seems a fairly run-of-the-mill case."

Mr. Burke folded his hands in front of him on the desktop. His apprentice was feeling unusually bold—he found himself getting into the swing of things, now that they were well on their way.

"Does it? _Please_ —" Burke gave him a sweep and expansive gesture. "Elaborate for me."

Bletchley—taking care not to pick at a particularly stubborn spot on his left cheek that had been irritating him all morning—began to pace in front of the desk.

"Well—a young man of means comes to meet his family's attorney, behind his father's back—I'm guessing he was here because there is some disagreement over allowance or the like, you'd know better than me on that, of course—" Burke said nothing in reply to this. "—And _then_ he proceeds to grudgingly complete purchases on his sire's behalf, after which he, by chance, runs into a friend of his cousin's, with whom he converses and walks to her luncheon with his female relations. Seems fairly open and shut. What's so strange about that?"

The old wizard's face had frozen in a dragon-like pose statuesque pose.

"What, indeed?" The tone of Burke's voice was acid. "Truly, Mr. Bletchley, you are a _paragon_ of insight."

The young man wilted.

Mr. Burke stood up, languidly—while his apprentice sputtered out an apology for his misstep.

"Well, I— _I_ thought it seemed sensible, at any rate." He watched his employer circle the desk, feeling mildly put-out. "I mean—well, I don't think I understand, Mr. Burke."

"I _know_ you don't." Burke shook his head, a thin smile on his lips. "Don't worry—I wouldn't expect you to. This is very unusual case—in more than _one_ way."

In spite of his irritation at the general mercurial moods of Belgravius Burke, Bletchley couldn't help being intrigued by whatever it was that had so caught his employer's decision. In the month of his apprenticeship, he'd never seen Burke this animated.

He'd actually gotten up from his chair.

"I believe the key to our understanding this whole business lies not in what we know so far—but what happened after."

"But what did happen _aft_ —"

A loud banging noise at the base of the stairs cut off his query. It was quickly followed by the muffled but distinct cursing, and—more alarming still, what sounded like someone coming to blows.

"We will know shortly."

There was the heavy thump—a noise which could almost be described as that of a body being dragged up the stairs, and then the door to the office flew open with a bang.

Bletchley goggled. Mr. Burke's house-elf, Argo—normally such a quiet and discreet creature that he was forever hovering about the apprentice unseen and causing him to trip—had forcibly dragged a man into the firm—if his colorful cursing was anything to go by, _entirely_ against his will.

The bandy-legged wizard reeked of tobacco smoke and had the vaguely unsavory appearance of something like Dicken's Fagin crossed with a Ladbrokes punter.

Mr. Burke, ever the consummate host, hardly blinked at the foul muck that had been tracked into his spotless office—nor did he bat an eyelash the man currently attempting to violently beat his servant around the head.

"Ah—Mr. Fletcher." His smile was bland. "Good of you to join us."

"Geroff me, you mad little— _oi_ , Gravey!" Bletchley's eyes popped out. "Call 'im off, will you? Little monster's practically stuck 'is _teeth_ in!"

Burke waved at the elf—a wordless order, for it immediately did what the man called Fletcher wanted and released him. Another _CRACK_ and Argo had gone—no doubt to guard the door and prevent their guest from leaving before his master was finished with his business.

The ginger-haired man wiped imaginary dust of his moldering overcoat and looked up. He threw a look of pure, unadulterated dislike in Burke's direction.

"Whatever it is, I _didn't_ do it."

Mr. Burke's smile remained pleasant—though there was a rather steely glint in his eyes Bletchley didn't think he'd ever seen before.

"Now, now—don't you know me better than that?" He offered Fletcher the seat that he had studiously avoided inviting his apprentice to sit in. "No one is _accusing_ you of anything."

"Then why're sending that shifty 'ol elf of yours to _accost_ me, eh?"

"Because—do you know what they say about you, Mundungus?" His smile turned into a grimace. "You're like a cat. When you aren't wanted, you can't be gotten rid of—but as soon as the _rats_ move in you're nowhere to be found."

Mundungus Fletcher looked as though he didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted by "what people said" of him. He settled himself in the chair, looking none-too-comfortable with his surroundings. A quick perusal of the room, and his eyes fell on Bletchley.

"Who's _this_?" asked, not bothering to hide how unimpressed he was.

"My apprentice," Burke replied, indifferently.

He turned to Bletchley, gaping at the man that had gone from affronted, wronged party to eyeing the silver instruments on the bookshelf with greed in under a minute.

" _This_ , Bletchley—is one Mundungus Fletcher. You'd do well to remember his face," he remarked, dryly. "He is one of the most _infamous_ petty criminals this country has ever produced. There is scarcely an act of extortion or chicanery in the whole Empire Fletcher isn't at the bottom of."

Fletcher chortled appreciatively.

"Take care, Gravey—" He knocked one of the shrunken heads on Burke's desk against the edge experimentally. "—I'll brung you up in court for defamation."

"You'd never willingly enter a courtroom of your own volition, Mundungus," Burke sniffed. "Rest easy. All I'm after _today_ is information. Very simple. When you give me what I want, I'll send you on your way."

Bletchley expected the man to protest, but to his surprise—Mundungus Fletcher's expression took on a shrewd quality. He set the skull back down.

"What're you on about, Burke?"

This was asked with the unaffected interest of one professional to another. Bletchley's employer lost his friendly expression.

"Yesterday you met a young man in the Leaky Cauldron at about—two in the afternoon. You sat at his table and handed him a note." Mundungus dropped the penknife he'd been about to pocket back on the desk. "I want to know what it said."

Mundungus turned his head and blinked, blearily.

"Why'd you want t'know about that?"

"I have a personal interest in the affairs and livelihood of the young wizard in question," he said, entirely straight-faced.

Mundungus let out an involuntary snort.

"What, in _Sirius_?" Burke didn't return the chuckle, and Fletcher instantly sobered. "Tell me another one!"

Bletchley made a small movement in the corner. His employer nodded, knowingly, in his direction. At least he understood _now_ why this third rate member of the criminal underworld was in Burke's office.

His employer leaned back in his chair.

"I assure you, it's the truth. Personally, I find the idea of _you_ having anything to do with young Sirius Black far more curious."

Privately, Bletchley agreed. The young man who'd come into the office yesterday and this criminal was an odd pairing, to say the least. Fletcher ran a hand over his unshaven face.

"'e's a—a friend of mine. A good kid. I 'elp 'im out—and sometimes we do _business_ together." Mundungus smiled, as fondly as his hangdog face would allow. "Get 'im parts for that bike of 'is—at a discounted rate."

"Bike?" Burke inquired, in a polite voice.

"You know—the motorbike. It's enchanted—it flies."

Bletchley made another jerky movement, hoping to attract Burke's attention—but his employer was now too intently focused on the man across the desk from him to notice.

"I dunno nothin' about what were in the letter, Burke." Mundungus raised both grubby hands in the air. "I was passing it on as a favor—that's all."

Belgravius Burke stared at him for a long moment. Then—without speaking or even blinking, he reached under his desk and pulled out a large bag of coins and dropped them on the table.

Fletcher's bloodshot eyes went wide.

"Shall we try this again, Fletcher?"

He was no longer feigning politeness. Mundungus stared at the gold with undisguised greed. Bletchley thought for sure the temptation would be too great, and he would sing like a canary, but to his surprise, the old crook forcibly dragged his eyes from the gold to Burke's face.

"Nothing doing, Burkey. I said I know nothing, and I don't."

Mr. Burke, expression mask-like, did not seem disappointed in the answer.

"So, then—it _was_ from Albus Dumbledore. I thought it might be."

Mundungus Fletcher's smile dropped like a sack of potatoes. He opened his mouth to protest—

"Don't bother denying it, Fletcher. We both know Dumbledore's the only man you wouldn't sell out for a piece of Leprechaun gold."

Mundungus mumbled out an indignant rejoinder, but he was drowned out by the audience to this scene.

"Sir—" Bletchley waved in the tobacco-stained man's direction. "You aren't saying— _he_ knows Albus Dumbledore?"

Mundungus rounded on the young man he'd quite forgotten was there, in his agitated state.

"'Course I know Dumbledore." He addressed the young man as if he was thick in the head. " _Everyone_ knows Dumbledore, mate."

"Well, _I_ don't," Bletchley said, in an affronted voice.

"That is because you have a sentimental mother who insisted you be close to her during your father's diplomatic posting." Bletchley's face colored. "Now, Fletcher—you needn't pretend to _me_ you didn't read it. _I_ certainly won't inform Dumbledore you've been snooping on secret messages he gives you."

"It weren't _from_ Dumbledore."

"Then you were delivering it on his behalf. It amounts to the same thing."

Mundungus Fletcher eyed Burke with newfound suspicion—and, Bletchley thought, a little fear.

"All it were was a time and place—on me mother's casket, I swear."

Burke smiled.

"Then I suppose there's nothing more to be discussed than your price."

For a man that Bletchley suspected was used to seedy transactions, Fletcher did not seem all that interested in the bribe.

"What's this to you, Gravey?" he asked, suspiciously. "Why d'you care what Sirius is up to?"

Burke sighed.

"I told you—a concern for his welfare." He gave the room a doleful, pious look—Bletchley could almost believe it was sincere. "I speak for the interests of his honorable parents. I am the personal solicitor and legal advisor for the Black family."

Fletcher snorted.

"That don't signify—he don't have nuffink to do with 'em, does 'e?"

The old lawyer leaned forward—the chair creaked at the motion. He wore the look of a man about to lay down the winning hand in a game of particular high-stakes.

"He is the eldest son and heir apparent to the entire Black family fortune."

Mundungus slapped his hand on the table and let out another guffaw of disbelief.

"Nah—'e isn't. 'e run away when he were in school—or they chucked 'im out, I forget which. Either way, they aren't footing 'is bills. I seen the flat where Sirius lives, and it weren't in Kensington. He don't have a knut to rub with a farthing."

Burke's smile of amusement turned to pity. He lifted the bag—no, Bletchley thought, it was more like a sack—and dropped it back down on the table. Fletcher started at the heavy sound of gold hitting wood.

"Do you know what this is?"

Fletcher gave it an appraising look.

"I've a—" He looked up from the bag to Burke's face, his bloodshot eyes wary. "—Rough estimate in mind, yeah."

" _This_ is the monthly allowance deposited in Sirius Black's personal expenditure account—the money he is, as heir, entitled to use as he sees fit." Bletchley thought Mundungus's eyes might pop out of his head. "Right now how much gold he receives is at the discretion of his father, but when he turns 21 it will be fixed amount, much larger. By then he will have his own estate to manage, of course—and perhaps a wife." He pulled out a galleon from the top of the bag and rolled it between his fingers. "Blacks are expected to live in a certain style, after all—their heirs even more so."

Mundungus looked gobsmacked. He raised a hand in accusation and waved it in Burke's face. It looked like it had recently been up the floo of a wealthy widow's house, pilfering the hidden silver.

"You're 'aving me on."

Anticipating this line of protest, Burke had already pulled out one of the many deposit slips he had Bletchley get from the fastidious goblin record-keepers at Gringotts as proof.

As his eyes traced over the receipt, Fletcher's jaw dropped.

"Why that little—" He threw the paper back on the table. "I gave 'im a discount on them parts!—and to think 'e was sitting on a pile like that the 'ole time."

Burke folded up the slip and returned it to his record book, expression placid, while Mundungus Fletcher swore up and down about 'bleedin' posh snits' who had taken advantage of his good nature to extort him by pretending to be hard-up.

"Your complaints about being outsmarted by enterprising _lads_ aside, I do hope you can now see my interest is in good faith," Burke cut in. "He is my client, after a fashion, and he needs to be looked after—sometimes for his _own_ good."

The knowledge that Sirius had been misrepresenting his financial straits had done little to soften Fletcher to Burke's request.

"I already told you I dunno what it said—and I wouldn't tell you if I did, neither, you bleedin' snoop."

He pushed the chair up roughly and pulled out his wand, clearly ready to use it on the elf waiting outside the door tried to prevent him leaving. Mr. Burke made no move to stop him—instead languidly turning to his apprentice, who was spellbound at the performance taking place in front of his eyes.

"Bletchley—remind me. What is the statute of limitations for prosecution of an individual selling Class-B magical antiquities without a license?"

Mundungus Fletcher's hand froze on the doorknob.

Bletchley, feeling his moment had come at last, cleared his throat importantly. Both men stared at him.

"There—there is no statute of limitations on any offense higher than Class-C, sir."

"And what sentence would one be looking at in Azkaban, for such an offense?"

"Oh—at least six months. For multiple cases—perhaps a year or two. No more than three, I should think, Mr. Burke."

Mundungus turned around slowly and proceeded to curse more violently in Burke's direction than ever. Bletchley was impressed with his employer's composure at being told to go to such a colorfully imagined version of hell.

"You see my apprentice is quite learned in the laws of this country, Fletcher."

"You effing son of a—"

"—Name, location, time," Burke cut him off, coldly. "I won't ask again."

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you—keep your 'air on—" Mundungus glared at him. He had no apparent shame at having read the private note that had been entrusted to his keeping. "Ministry of Magic at 'leven this morning. It's all I know."

"Someone handed you this note, Fletcher."

"It were Diggle—Dedalus Diggle, but it weren't 'is handwriting." Fletcher shrugged his shoulders. "Sirius seemed to know what it was about, anyway."

Burke considered him for a long moment. Bletchley waited with baited breath—Mundungus Fletcher looked like murder, and even with the smell of stale drink about him, he seemed a man who would fight, if cornered.

Mr. Burke nodded—apparently satisfied.

"You've been a great help to me in this matter, Mundungus." He smiled blandly at the red-faced crook at the door, still cursing under his breath. "I'd advise you to stay away from Sirius in future. I don't think his mother and father would much approve of his association with a man of your…provenance."

Fletcher guffawed, harshly.

"Like I'd 'elp that ungrateful kid out again, anyway."

The door slammed shut behind him.

The two men who were left in the room stood in silence.

"I think I understand better why this matter is so—delicate, Mr. Burke."

"Indeed. Fletcher's view of young Master Black's situation is, on the whole, the common understanding. He has been publicly estranged from his family for over three years. I myself believed the same, until yesterday."

"Was it true about the money?"

"The expense account? Oh yes." Burke chuckled quietly. "Though, it _was_ an arrangement made before his disgraceful exit, and merely never _rescinded_ by his father. I doubt young Sirius even realizes he has access to that gold—and if he did, I daresay he wouldn't draw on it." Bletchley opened his mouth to ask the question. "—He has a curious fear of them."

"Of whom?"

"His family." Burke steepled his fingers, absorbed in his thoughts. "Eleven at the Ministry of Magic…hm."

His cold eyes glanced over to the grandfather clock—it was just half past nine.

"Tell me, Bletchley—how do you fancy a bit of _field_ work?"

His apprentice gulped.

* * *

"Name?"

"Erm—Black," he replied, absently. The security witch—a squat woman of about forty-five—ran a finger down the list at her right.

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, feeling unaccountably jumpy. Sirius didn't come to the Ministry much, but every time he had in the past year there had been more security. One couldn't just _drop in_ anymore—at least, people without connections couldn't. You had to have a reason for coming and be approved by the head of department of whoever you were meeting. He was sure Frank would not have called him here without giving his name and a good excuse, but he still felt uneasy.

It was in the air—a stirring that he could feel, a shivering in his bones.

Sirius's earliest memory of coming to the Ministry of Magic was from his childhood—he could not have been older than five or six. It had been around Christmastime then, too—and after spending the morning listening to increasingly dull lectures from his father and mother on the seriousness of the outing and how he must be on his _absolute best behavior_ if he ever wanted to be allowed out on 'official visits' again—he recalled being surprised at how bright and cheerful the seat of magical government had been. He'd been expecting the place his grandfather spent most of the time to be as dreary as his manor in Suffolk, dark and evil-smelling, like _Noire_ House. Instead, little Sirius had gazed in wide-eyed delight at the enormous fir that stretched to the ceiling—and had silently filed the knowledge that he could not trust mama and papa's opinions of places.

A cheery wizard dressed as Father Christmas had even slipped him a toffee before his mother dragged him away.

The buzzing he felt in the air of the main promenade surrounding the Fountain of Magical Brethren this morning bore no resemblance to the atmosphere of that distant Christmas past. It was not relaxed—despite the fact that the holiday was less than a week away, the comings and goings of the Ministry were no less frantic than they had been for the proceeding year—and they were certainly no more festive. The never-ending stream of witches and wizards coming and going from the fire places kept their heads down, avoided eye contact. Speech was hushed, and conversation between two died out all together when a third approached.

Paranoia.

 _That_ was the feeling, he realized, with a jolt. Fear—but not of what was out _there._ Of course, was it any wonder they were afraid? The war was going badly, and people could no longer avoid it—the cracks were beginning to show. Everyone had begun to realize the awful truth.

There was no where safe from Lord Voldemort's reach—not even in the government itself.

It boded ill for their side—morale was sure to only get worse as people realized the extent of the rot.

As he looked around the hall, Sirius could not help comparing the atmosphere _here_ to his grandfather's birthday celebration. The party in Wiltshire had been relaxed, even cheerful. Of course, the people in that ballroom—most of whom, he reminded himself, cynically, had been his family and their friends—were the witches and wizards who thought they were untouchable.

No wonder Colette hadn't believed his warnings, that night. It didn't look like much of a war from where his grandparents were sitting.

A dry cough from the witch drew his attention.

"I see you, on here—but you're early."

"No, I'm not." He pulled the scrap of parchment out of his pocket. "It's just past eleven—if anything I'm late."

She looked back down at her list.

"Oh, sorry—I've got two Blacks on here, and the other's not due to arrive until one." Her brown eyes flitted back up at his face. "Sirius, is it?"

He nodded, frowning.

"So, erm—" Sirius craned his neck over the desk. " _Who_ is the other Black you've got coming?"

The security woman gave him a slightly suspicious look.

"Who's asking?"

"Just a bloke trying to avoid his father."

Her expression softened.

"I'm not allowed to give out information on other visitors to the Ministry of Magic." She bent her head down and said, in a lower voice. "Though—if I were you, I'd—steer clear of the courtrooms in the next hour or so. Just a—hunch."

Sirius's face lit up with understanding. _Ah_. Of course. The weekly lunch with Arcturus—that was why Orion was here.

"Right. Well, you toed the line." He winked at her. "Can't blame you, really. Got to be a stickler in these things."

She handed him a visitor's badge. _Sirius Black, Auror Trainee Candidate_. He stared at it, trying not to let his surprise show. Frank hadn't mentioned in his note the pretext under which they were to meet.

"Auror office is up on the second floor. You'll want to go directly—there." She pointed out the lift to him.

"Thanks."

The lift was empty when Sirius stepped into it. He stuck his hands into his jeans and scuffed the heels of his boot on the floor, feeling once again put-out. He understood why Frank had not wanted to put more details in his letter, given that Mundungus Fletcher was the one delivering it—he was certain Dung had read it before he'd handed it over, protests be damned—but it would've been nice to know 'meet me for lunch' was Auror code for a 'job interview.'

He pulled at the cuff of his leather jacket and winced, anticipating the look Longbottom would give him when he saw his getup. He hadn't exactly dressed the part of the eager would-be Auror.

Well, he'd improvise. If nothing else, he was good at _that_.

The Auror office was an open area off the main hall in the larger Department of Magical Law Enforcement—which took up most of the second floor of the Ministry. Sirius—who rarely had difficulty getting peoples' attention—found himself amidst so much chaos that no one so much as looked _twice_ at him. Half the cubicles were empty—but there was so much frantic activity, wizards walking to and fro between them, discussing plans in hushed voices, looking over newspaper clippings and reports—it gave the impression of a department overworked and understaffed.

A large map on the wall marked with blinking dots caught his eye. Sirius took a step towards it, his curiosity piqued—it looked like it was of the Low Countries. _That's interesting—_

"Well— _hello_ there." He felt his shoulders tense—they seized on instinct, as they often did before a fight. "Where did _you_ come from?"

Sirius slowly turned his head from the map—and found a shapely, dark-haired witch of about twenty-five watching him—the first person to notice that he'd wandered into their office unannounced.

The eager look on her face was one he knew well. He smiled—disarmingly but not encouraging.

"The lift," Sirius answered, in a bland voice. The corner of her mouth turned up—the 'I caught you' expression becoming more pronounced.

"And what can I _do_ for you?"

Her distinct emphasis gave the question a decidedly unprofessional edge. The witch twirled the quill in her hand and smiled slyly.

Sirius frowned, bristling in spite of himself. He was no stranger to women coming onto him—he was fond of telling his friends, that it was an occupational hazard of having his face—but as much as he played it up to niggle at Remus, he had never liked forward girls. Being eyed like a piece of meat was an unpleasant sensation, and he was young and thoughtless enough to quite easily ignore any double standard on this front.

"Um—I'm here for—"

Her eyes had already fallen on the visitor's badge.

"Ah. You're one of the potential department recruits." They slid up to his face. "…Fresh out of Hogwarts, then?"

It was only the pretext of his cover story that kept Sirius from scowling at her. Was this bird going to ask what his _sign_ was, next?

"I graduated in '78, actually."

"However did we miss you?"

He shrugged.

"My head of house didn't think I had the right…disposition," Sirius invented, leaning against the side of the nearest wall. "Wasn't willing to refer me."

The Auror laughed and nodded, a knowing smile that said she thought she had the measure of him. It was probably true, even if McGonagall had never, strictly speaking, said it.

"Well, you're here _now_ , anyway. Better late than never."

They had attracted the attention of a couple of the flirt's female coworkers, who Sirius noticed out of the corner of his eye were giving her identical disapproving looks behind her back.

"We generally have a kind of pre-interview—informal lunch with people who're interested in becoming Aurors, in the canteen upstairs. But things are so mad these days, whoever scheduled you might not even be here. Do you remember a na—"

"—He's for Moody, Danielle."

At the familiar voice, Sirius—still leaning against the cubicle—froze. The witch, annoyed, turned around to address the interloper to her chat-up.

"What do you _mean,_ 'he's for Moody'?"

Frank Longbottom—wearing professional badge, robes and a serious expression, and carrying a stack of reports—shrugged his shoulders.

"Moody said he wanted to do _this_ pre-screening interview himself."

He nodded in Sirius's direction politely—giving zero sign of recognition. It was then that the full implication of Longbottom's words hit him with the force of a bludger to the gut.

 _Oh, fucking hell, Frank—you didn't._

Sirius plastered on a look of polite puzzlement.

"When he says _Moody_ , does he mean _Alastor_ Moody, the head of the Auror Department?" he asked Danielle in a stage whisper. " _The_ Moody?"

She rolled her eyes and nodded. The mystique of her famous Auror boss had clearly worn off long ago for Danielle, if she was annoyed at him for robbing her of the chance at a cushy work lunch with a wizard she found easy on the eyes.

"Maybe I should come back—" He pulled the parchment out of his pocket and pretended to read it. "I didn't think I'd be seeing _him_. It says here I was supposed to have lunch and a chat with some bloke called 'Frank Longbottom', and as you can see, I'm not really dressed for—"

"—Moody doesn't care how you dress," Frank cut him off, briskly. "Doesn't stand on ceremony, either. He doesn't usually take the time to speak one-on-one with recruits this stage of the game. You should take it as a good sign he's interested in you—" He squinted and feigned reading Sirius's badge. "— _Black,_ right?"

Sirius doubted Ms. Forward could hear the warning in Frank's voice—and she could definitely not see the hard glint in his eyes, trained on Sirius's, which told him it would not be in Black's interest to keep trying to extricate himself from this interview.

Danielle threw Sirius another smile—this time more apologetic, and then pulled Longbottom a little apart from him.

"This is _supposed_ to be about _recruiting_ wizards, Frank—" Sirius caught her frantic whisper. "—Not _scaring them off_. Mad Eye's been in a mood all morning—he'll eat him alive."

"It's Moody's orders." Another apologetic shrug, and was it Sirius's imagination, or was it less believable than the first? "Out of my hands."

 _Nice acting,_ Sirius thought, still pretending to be nervous, hoping Frank could feel the pulsing resentment he was channeling in his direction. _I bet the whole damn thing was_ your idea _, Longbottom._

Evidently whatever it was that Orion had said to Frank after his ignominious exit from the party, it had successfully done the trick of pissing off yet another person he'd just as well have been on good terms with.

The thought of having to face Frank had been bad enough—he was not prepared for Moody. Walburga had softened him up this morning—Mad-Eye was liable to finish him off completely.

"I can take him back to Alastor's office, Frank."

The voice that interjected was mild and unassuming, and at the sound of her, Frank's entire demeanor changed. A round-faced blond with soft eyes came up behind him and rested her hand on his shoulder.

"The thing _is_ , Alice—" Mrs. Longbottom smiled—his shoulders relaxed. "That I thought I'd prep him for—"

"— _I_ can do all that, darling," his wife interrupted, in a slightly firmer voice. "Truly."

Frank frowned—he looked from the younger man to his wife, considering the prospect, before nodding. Sirius felt a surge of gratitude towards her, and Alice smiled at him, a little teasingly—though not so much so that anyone could have guessed they had a prior acquaintance.

The was just the sort of person she was.

"Nice little trap your husband sprang on me," he muttered, when they were out of earshot. "His handwriting, but no name. Clever. He can't even say he brought me here under false pretenses."

"Somehow—" He could hear the laugh in Alice's voice as he followed her through the winding cubicles to the private offices in the back. "—He thought you _might_ try to skive off if you knew it was Mad-Eye who wanted the chat."

They reached the door. Sirius eyed the nameplate with apprehension.

"I still might."

She turned back around and gave his arm a comforting squeeze. Alice's smile was a little too understanding—Sirius guessed she probably knew quite a bit more about his piss-up of two nights before than he wished her to.

"It will be fine. You'll still get your lunch with Frank after." She winked. "His treat."

" _If_ I'm still alive."

The Auror rolled her eyes and opened the door—and after a quick exchange, she moved to the side to let Sirius slide past her and enter the inner sanctum.

"Good luck," she whispered, before closing the door again.

Moody's office was so cluttered and full of objects—dark detectors of every kind, a Foe-Glass which took up the entire south wall, a gigantic Sneakoscope—that for a minute Sirius couldn't see where the desk was.

"Black." He jumped and turned. "Man of the hour."

Alastor Moody—well into middle age, dark grizzled hair, one leg propped haphazardly on a wooden stool—sat behind a large desk, surrounded and covered with so many boxes and strange objects that Sirius was not surprised he had not noticed Moody's presence at first—he was practically camouflaged. On his desk was an inbox stacked high with parchment, labeled 'TO SIGN— _URGENT_!', which had been charmed to flash garish neon orange when full. Moody had hidden it behind a large potted plant.

Sirius smiled weakly and gestured towards the tray.

"Bit behind in your paperwork, Mad-Eye?"

The Auror looked up from the paper he'd been reading, and the smile—and all pretense at bravado—fell away. Sirius fancied himself not easy to rattle—there were very few people he didn't have the nerve to joke with—but this man was one of them.

Especially because he knew Mad-Eye didn't like him.

Alastor Moody had been the _de facto_ head of the Auror Department for just over three years, after his predecessor had suffered a nervous collapse following the infamous Brecon attack in Wales. Intelligence leaks had revealed, much to the Ministry's embarrassment, that the incident—the attack of four Muggle-born magical zoologists on their Welsh dragon sanctuary—had been forewarned by spies, one of which leaked his displeasure to the press. Moody had been the only one in the department to take the intel seriously—and it had been his following the tip that had saved the youngest child of the family's life. So it was when Esmond Tewksbury had checked himself into St. Mungo's psychiatric ward for 'rest and recuperation', he was immediately named interim Chief Auror by PR-driven government fiat.

There he had remained for three years, waiting for the elusive replacement that seemed, for the present, unlikely to materialize.

It was widely assumed that neither the Ministry, nor indeed Moody himself, wanted him in the job. Nicknamed 'Mad-Eye' for his legendary ability to track down dark wizards and the infamous paranoia that he credited for his 'mad' edge, Moody was the last person who should have been allowed anywhere near a position that required finesse in public relations—but rather like a barnacle, once attached to the job that gave him the freedom to dictate the direction of the Auror office, he was proving difficult to dislodge.

"Have a seat, Black." Moody held a half-eaten corned beef sandwich in one hand. "Don't mind, do you?"

He shook his head and sat down across from Mad-Eye. The Auror chewed his sandwich thoughtfully as he eyed his young visitor.

"You missed our debriefing the other night," Moody said, without preamble.

Oh. So they were cutting to the chase.

"Mad-Eye—"

"—And this report of yours—" He pulled a bundle of parchment off one of the piles on his desk. "—Is _missing_ a detail or two."

Moody slapped it back down on the table. Sirius winced.

"Look—should we—" He looked around, then said, in a lower voice, "Should we _really_ be talking about this _here_?"

"Where do you think would be better?" Moody growled, tossing his sandwich back on the plate. "A cafe? A restaurant out in the open?"

"Well, it would be better than the Ministry of—"

"—A place where every other Muggle could be a Death Eater in _disguise_?"

Without even thinking about it, Sirius had draped his arm over the back of the chair. It dropped back down to his side instantly.

Moody stared hard at him—a watchful, anticipatory look. A 'well aren't you going to explain yourself' look.

The type of look Sirius had been getting since before he could walk.

"What—" Sirius picked at a stray thread on his jeans and waved his hand at the pile of papers. He could recognize his own scrawling handwriting at a distance. "What _details_ do you think are missing, exactly?"

He managed to imbue this question with the haughty air of someone who feels they have written a veritable masterpiece, and can't grasp why its literary merits are being questioned.

"There's nothing about how you got out of the house." Moody raised one craggy eyebrow. "I assume you didn't evaporate into thin air."

Sirius clenched his jaw.

"Why does _that_ matter?" he demanded, through gritted teeth. "I made it out in one piece, as you can see."

Moody squared his shoulders. He was not a tall man, but there was something about the energy he exuded that commanded immediate, visceral respect.

"But you didn't make it to the rendezvous, Black."

For Sirius, it was a feeling of old—a feeling that was always followed by an immediate streak of reactionary rebellion.

"Circumstances forced me to—improvise." He ran a hand through his hair. "I—lost my wand, so I couldn't apparate."

"But you made it back to your flat," Moody pointed out. "Lily Potter said as much."

"There's a village about five miles away from the manor that's got a tavern run by a witch. I used her fireplace to get back to London."

"Walked five miles on foot, did you?"

It had been far easier as a dog with four legs.

"Made it out of a Death Eater stronghold—without a wand," Moody muttered. "Damned impossible feat. They said you were impressive, Black—I didn't realize you were _that_ good."

Sirius's expression soured.

"I had—assistance. As Longbottom no doubt told you, it was more of an _expulsion_ than an escape." He refused to invoke the dreaded name of the man who'd caught him. "As far as how I got out, let's just say it's a family secret and leave it at that."

They stared at each other in silence.

Moody, who looked perpetually put-out as it was, gave not the smallest sign of being moved by humor, pity—or understanding.

"Do you think this is a _game_ , Black?"

Sirius's lip twitched. He felt his lip curl—almost on reflex.

"What—what's a game?" He leaned back in the chair. "Life…love, this conversation—"

"—Do you think _war_ is a game?"

The legs dropped back onto the floor.

"No, I don't."

"And do you like playing with peoples' lives?"

"No."

Moody pulled a flask out from his hip pocket and took a swig from it.

"Do you think you know your priorities?" He screwed the lid back on.

"Always."

Moody considered this answer—given without hesitation—for a long moment. He felt like he was in a game of chicken with the older man—like this was one of his infamous interrogations.

Sirius couldn't take it.

"Look, I know I messed up. I'm not denying it." He stood up and approached the desk. "I'm prepared to do what has to be done, alright?"

"At any cost—and against orders."

"No one saw my father getting me out of the house, Moody—and believe me, if they did—they'd never guess what they were looking at, _really_." Sirius sighed. "All I'm asking for is—another chance."

"You think you deserve another chance, Black?"

"It's not about _deserving._ "

"True enough." He gave Sirius a once-over. "Most men in your position don't have the luxury of asking."

A dozen smart comebacks crossed Sirius's mind—but as he watched Moody turn back to the papers on his desk, his demeanor marked with that clipped finality that told his young companion he was very near being done with this conversation—that he was done with Sirius himself—

He felt things slipping out of his control again—ironic, it was just the same feeling as he'd had that night, the walls closing in, that last grasping struggle for air before the door shut—which always made him reckless—

"Look, Mad-Eye, what I _really_ want—"

Two even knocks at the door interrupted him; Moody held up one of his gnarled hands to cut off the strangled entreaty at its legs.

"Come in!" he called out, in a clear voice.

The door opened without preamble, and a tall, middle-aged man in dark blue robes stepped through the door.

"Ah, Moody." At the sight of Sirius, standing over Moody's desk, his hand still frozen in a gesticulating motion—the wizard stopped. There was an awkward pause. "If you're—ah, _busy_ , I can come back."

Moody grunted. Sirius lowered his arm and sat back down in the chair, eyes still storming with suppressed emotion.

"No need." The man shut the door behind him and approached the desk. "What did you want, Crouch?"

Polite, but with the barest trace of sarcasm—something only a person who knew Moody well could detect, for he usually preferred the straightforward approach.

The man's lip curled. Immediately above his mouth was a neatly trimmed mustache. He had piercing eyes, graying brown hair, and the kind of commanding presence Sirius knew well from his parents' social circle. It spoke to a sense of surety and power and knowing one's place in the world that he had only ever seen among the purebloods of the oldest English families.

Sirius had recognized the wizard as soon as he walked in the door—it was Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Your signature." He walked straight past Sirius as if he were invisible and handed a roll of parchment to Moody over his desk. "Warrants. I'm due in the courtrooms in ten minutes. I can leave and come back for them—"

Moody's sharp eyes darted over the page. He frowned, and when Mr. Crouch made a small movement towards the door, he held up a hand again.

"—Don't bother." Mr. Crouch raised one eyebrow. "I'll do it now, and you can take them up directly."

Crouch nodded, politely.

"I'm _obliged_ to you."

Moody, it seemed, did not relish the prospect of a second visit—and nor did Crouch. The minister stood a respectful distance from Moody as he read through each and every arrest warrant.

The uncomfortable atmosphere in the room said more about the professional relationship between the men than words could've.

Mutual respect and wariness. Of course, Sirius would've known _that_ even if he wasn't in a room with them. The disparity between Moody and Crouch's style was no secret—and the disagreements between them had lead to several very ugly public clashes, some of which had leaked into the press.

Sirius studied him in profile. Barty Crouch was a man known for cunning and ambition, a wizard who had distinguished himself at the Ministry in the previous decade. To many he was seen as one of the few shining lights in a government that had done very little to stem the tide of Lord Voldemort's ascension to power.

Sirius had seen him enough in the _Daily Prophet_ to recognize him on sight—but they'd never met, and his gut instinct tended towards immediate dislike.

 _He seems like a fucking prig._

Sirius fidgeted in his chair—feeling more self-conscious than ever about his leather jacket and jeans. He tried to affect a pose of casual boredom and _not_ look as though he was nosy and interested in what it was Moody was signing—even though he was. The leaning towards the desk drew Crouch's attention, and he met his gaze.

Mad-Eye glanced up.

"Auror training program pre-screening," he said, indifferently. "Interviews."

" _Really_." The slight sneer was obvious. "I didn't think you did them, anymore."

"Yeah, well—" Moody gave Sirius a pointed look. "I've realized Longbottom's too soft."

Crouch laughed, shortly. Sirius felt a little flush creep into his face and was immediately annoyed at himself for showing it. He blinked, haughtily, before turning to stare at the Foe Glass which covered the entire wall to his left. He was determined not to let Mad-Eye provoke him—certainly not in front of Crouch.

Shadowy shapes moved about—indistinct except for the number. He stared at them, trying and failing to identify the people as individuals. His grandmother had used to say that there was a feeling like someone creeping over the grave.

Sirius shivered. Nothing like not knowing who your enemies are.

"Black, is it?"

He started and turned to find Crouch watching him. The mild curiosity which had marked Crouch's first pass over him had turned to knowing understanding.

"What gave me away?"

"My mother was a Black." _No wonder you seem like such a prick._ "I find there are usually…signs."

"They _do_ say Phineas Nigellus is the unofficial father of the nation."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Sirius noticed Moody had lowered the parchment he'd been pouring over and was watching the exchange with interest.

And disapproval.

"You're Orion's son," Crouch continued, and Sirius had the familiar pang of annoyance at being spotted. He was sure old Barty had not read the name badge. "We were at school together—in the same year. Both prefects."

Sirius slouched down in the seat.

"Yeah—I think I've heard that." He gave Crouch a rather insolent look. "Something about you getting Head Boy over him. I have to tell you, Mr. Crouch—if you should ever run for higher office, that's one vote you shouldn't count on." Sirius grinned. "I don't think my grandfather has ever let him forget it."

Mr. Crouch's mouth fell open—Sirius relished the look of surprise. He didn't seem like the sort of wizard who let it show that often. He recovered his equilibrium quickly, though.

"On the subject of _your_ grandfather," Crouch said, staring down at his fingernails. "I was surprised to see him in the chamber just now. He doesn't come to court much these days."

"Yeah, well, they let him out of his crypt every once in a while—" A look of amusement flashed across the older man's face. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention to him that you saw me, sir—or he might try to put you up to having me _arrested_."

Crouch looked up from his hand, interested—probably in spite of himself.

"On what charge?"

"Depends. Is shaming the family name a crime in this country yet?" Sirius sat up straighter in his chair. "I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to shove a bill through the courts to make it one."

Moody cleared his throat loudly—both of the other men turned around to look at him. He was holding out Crouch's stack of warrants, the ink still shining on the parchment.

"All done, Crouch." He shook the stack in one clawed fist. "You can take them."

Mad-Eye didn't pretend to be thrilled by whatever it was that he'd read and signed off on—but he had little recourse to protest it here, in front of Sirius.

Mr. Crouch—who had remembered himself and the urgency of the task at hand in the same moment—hurried over to Moody's desk to take the papers from him.

"Excellent." He rolled them up and slipped them inside his robes, a look of satisfaction on his face. "We'll discuss the implementation of the new extradition process tomorrow, hm?"

Moody didn't even grunt an affirmation—and the sour look that he leveled in Mr. Crouch's direction had no effect on the man that he technically reported to. Crouch strode past Sirius and towards the door—then stopped and turned around.

"One other thing, Moody." His eyes lingered on Sirius. " _Do_ let me know when you're done interviewing candidates for training. I should like to see the files for your top picks. Send them up to me, will you?"

He didn't wait for a sign of agreement before snapping the door shut.

Sirius and Moody sat in silence for a heavy moment.

"So, you going to send up my file, Mad-Eye?" Sirius joked, weakly.

Moody didn't crack a smile.

"What do _you_ think, Black?" He shoved aside a stack of papers to clear off space in front of him. " _Never_ without a smart remark."

"It's a blessing and a curse."

The Auror snorted. Sirius let out a sigh of frustration and ran his fingers through his fringe.

"Look—I know you didn't call me here _just_ to chew me out." He stood back up and leaned against the edge of Moody's desk, trying not to let his desperation show. "Give it to me straight: what do I have to do regain your trust?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Mad-Eye, I know that's not—"

"—You're grounded, Black." The color completely drained from Sirius's face. "Until further notice."

It was both his worst fear and what he'd been expecting—but the surge of indignant anger came anyway.

"That's not your decision to make," he growled, slamming both hands against the desk. Moody's plant rattled in its pot. The older man watched him impassively.

"No, it's not—it's Dumbledore's. You can take it up with him tomorrow, if you don't like it. It comes from him." Sirius's hands dropped to his sides—another blow. "It's out of my hands, Black."

He knew it was—he had known as much from the moment he'd walked into the Ministry, if he was being truly honest with himself.

He was not a kid anymore. It was for keeps, now—nobody was going to give him a slap on the wrist and send him on his merry way.

"Did he ask you to break the bad news?" Sirius asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Moody studied him, calmly. There was an uncomfortable immediacy to the feeling of it—and after a moment, Sirius realized he knew why. Moody was looking at him the same way Crouch had.

"You're taking this harder than I thought you would."

Moody rose from his chair.

"Of course I—"

"I'd have thought you had enough on your plate—" Moody cut him off. "—Living in a flat with a Death Eater who's gone rogue isn't enough excitement for you, eh?"

The Auror's expression didn't falter, so it took a moment for Moody's words to hit him.

The silence was deafening.

"Dumbledore didn't ask you to speak to me." Sirius looked up at him—realization setting in fast. "He doesn't—he doesn't even know you _called_ me here."

Moody tossed a few more papers on top of the stack that was already threatening to topple. The flashing light turned from yellow to red.

"He'll probably hear about it." Moody shrugged, unconcerned. "Usually does. Dumbledore makes it his business to know things."

Sirius stared at him.

"Look, Moody—I'm not…I'm not supposed to talk about that." He clenched his fists over his knees and glanced over his shoulder, as if he thought Crouch would come back in. "No one else is even supposed to _know._ "

"Your father should have thought of that before he approached Longbottom," Moody replied, bluntly. "This is all strictly off the record, anyway. Thought you and I would have a talk. Figured you could use it."

Sirius sank back down into the chair. He had been expecting the chewing out—but somehow _this_ was more disconcerting.

"How much did Dumbledore tell you?"

"Enough. From the sound of it, there's been an arrangement, and Dumbledore's not the type to go back on his word—unless he's been pushed into a corner." Moody's expression darkened. "When Frank told us what happened, it wasn't too hard to guess something of the rest."

Sirius nodded, ruefully. He could see the scene clearly—whatever Orion had communicated to Frank, it would be impossible to not infer some of his family's current predicament. He found it difficult to imagine Moody holding back the obvious questions—he was one of the few people who'd known Albus Dumbledore long enough to be able to get around his tendency towards opaqueness.

"So." He dropped his foot off the stool. "Turns out you're not the only Black who likes playing a dangerous game, are you?"

"It's not what you think."

What it was—well, at this point, Sirius didn't even know.

"Do you trust him?"

"Depends on your definition of the word."

"No, it doesn't."

"What do you want me to say, Mad-Eye?" Sirius rose from the chair, overcome with restlessness. He was done playing games—he'd already done enough of that for a lifetime. "I trust him to look out for the interests of my parents—somehow, I don't think tipping Malfoy off to the fact that _we_ were infiltrating his party would serve that purpose."

Moody remained unmoved by his sarcasm.

"Malfoy and the rest knew you and Longbottom were coming, Black." He laid both hands on the desk and leaned forward. "They had to find out from someone—"

"—Well, it wasn't from my _brother_."

Sirius had raised his voice without even meaning to.

"Did Dumbledore tell you what he _did_ , Mad-Eye?"

"No," Moody admitted, without hesitation. "He didn't."

Dumbledore had at least kept that end of the bargain.

"Well, take my word for it—there'll be no going back."

"You don't know that." Moody waved his hand. "We're in uncharted territory, Black—no one's ever defected from You-Know-Who. At least, no one who's lived to tell the tale."

"In _his_ case it was a close call."

Moody's black brows creased in his forehead. Two black eyes shone as bright as beetles. They gave Sirius a piercing look.

"Desperate men don't act rationally."

"They do in my family." Sirius's lip curled. "Present company excluded."

Moody snorted.

"I don't like it." He shook his head. "Death Eaters switching sides—don't trust it. People don't really change."

"He was just a kid, Mad-Eye."

"And I don't believe in _fence-sitting_ , either."

He knew Moody didn't trust anyone—that it was just his way—but he couldn't help it, that uncomfortable stirring in the pit of his stomach. Mad-Eye seemed to read where his thoughts were tending, because it was with great restraint that he asked his next question.

"What about _them_?" Moody asked, quietly. "Where do their loyalties lie?"

"With themselves," Sirius said, laughing bitterly. The Auror's frown became more pronounced—giving his craggy face the appearance of a roughly-hewn wooden carving. "Same as Regulus."

"They must think they're getting something out of this arrangement." Moody shoved his copy of Crouch's warrants underneath an ancient training manual. "Besides the obvious."

"You're _looking_ at what they think they're getting."

Moody stared at for a long moment—before his scarred mouth broke into a wide smile—the first true smile he'd given Sirius.

"One of Dumbledore's ideas?"

"Well, it wasn't _mine_."

Moody softened—very briefly.

"You're in a tight spot, Black," Mad-Eye said, seriously. "But if you proved nothing else, it's that you're good at getting out of tight spots. There's opportunity here. _Potential_."

Sirius sat up straighter.

"What would you have me do?"

"Just keep your eyes and ears open—"

Sirius snorted.

"—And _don't_ let your emotions get the better of you."

He had the same tone of finality that Sirius's father had had the day before. Sirius pushed the chair in, roughly, and walked towards the exit.

He knew better than to deny that he was susceptible to such tendencies.

"Anything _else_ you wanted to say?" he asked, deeply sarcastic. "Any other words of wisdom for me?"

Moody's expression was inscrutable.

"Nothing—for now." His eyes narrowed. "You seem to know your marching orders well enough."

"That's me. Always ready to be the 'good soldier'." He stopped at the door, his hand on the knob—and hesitated. Sirius didn't turn around. "Listen…I know you didn't want me on this mission."

"And why do you think that is, Black?"

He froze.

"Frank says…you told him I'm a 'loose cannon'."

"You _are_. But that's not the reason."

Sirius's hand tightened on the brass. He squeezed it to stop his hand from shaking. Moody said nothing, offered not explanation—just let Sirius stand there for what felt like minutes.

"I'm—just—sorry to have been a disappointment to you, Mad-Eye."

"And why is _that_?" Moody snapped—for the first time raising his voice. He sounded angry—really angry. "That's your problem, Black—you make _everything_ personal. What I think of you shouldn't _matter._ It's not the point. I need people willing to get the job done—not wizards out to prove something."

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wooden door. A breath in, a breath out—anything to calm him down, quench whatever fire was burning in his breast—the one he couldn't stifle no matter how hard he tried.

"Don't I _have_ something to prove?"

It came out as no more than a whisper. He almost hoped Moody didn't catch the words—but as soon as he heard the short sigh—an unusual sound from Mad-Eye, like a dragon cooing—he knew.

No such luck.

"If you do, Black—it'll be to yourself, not to _me_." Sirius turned sharply on his heel—his face flushed with anger. "In any case—this time out of the field should give you a chance to sort it out."

Moody picked up the remains of his corn beef sandwich. Sirius watched him take a bite—Moody hardly seemed to notice how revolting it was.

"A nice quiet holiday will be just the thing."

Whether he'd meant to or not—Moody did the trick of defusing Sirius's anger. He laughed.

"Right. Well—anyway—" Sirius smiled—a wide, sarcastic smile and opened the door. " _Please—_ let me know if my application for the Auror Training Program makes it to the next round."

Moody nodded.

"Either way—I'll be in touch."

* * *

 **A wild Mundungus appears! And a wild Crouch Sr.!**

 **Because I'm a hyper stickler for sticking to canon, two notes about my choices here** _—_ **I've always liked the nickname 'Mad-Eye' for Moody, but in the books he definitely doesn't lose his eye until relatively late in the war (presumably after Sirius is already in jail, since he had both eyes during Karkaroff's trial). The choice to make his nickname predate that and ironically fitting is poetic license-as is the choice to make him head of the Auror Office, which was never explicitly stated in the books or, as far as I know, in any ancillary materials. There's nothing that says he wasn't.**


	15. Chapter 15

_'_ _What private business have they got together anyway?'_

 _'_ _Gold, I expect,' said Mr. Weasley, angrily. 'Malfoy's been giving generously to all sorts of things for years…Gets him in with the right people…then he can ask favors…delay laws he doesn't want passed…Oh, he's very well connected, Lucius Malfoy…' "_

 ** _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 15**

* * *

"I'm telling you, Lucius—if there _was_ anyone at your house that night—it had _nothing_ to do with the Auror Office."

Malfoy leaned back in the chair—the only piece of furniture in this cramped office in the forgotten corner of the Central Office of Magical Law Enforcement, save the desk and the young man sitting behind it—and gave his companion a circumspect look.

"How can you be sure?"

Alan Rowle was prevented from an immediate reply by the act of shoveling the rest of his steak and kidney pie down his gullet. Malfoy tried not to show his distaste for the action. It was his own fault for coming here on his lunch hour and expecting Rowle—one of his former housemates and would-be Slytherin protégées—to show the rare restraint that would have been appropriate, given his guest.

"Because, simply—" He swallowed. "Crouch is riding Moody too hard—making him send every report of his dealings, every expenditure the department makes, every memo, every owl—all in triplicate. _Nothing_ gets past him."

And nothing got past young Rowle—the newest assistant to the undersecretary of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Alan was three or four years younger than Lucius, but for someone as fresh to the Ministry as he, this was seen as a choice posting.

Rowle Sr. had certainly paid handsomely for it.

"If they'd sent someone—trust me, I'd know by now."

"Is it possible the Auror office would assign missions with no—eh, parchment trail?"

"Very unlikely." He stuck his fork into the plate of cold potatoes—it stood straight up. "Crouch is looking for any excuse to get rid of Moody—and that kind of book tampering is exactly what would do the trick. They're always at each other's throats over that sort of thing. Each thinks the leaks to the _Prophet_ are coming from the others' office."

And—irony of ironies—in all likelihood they were coming from both.

"I'm sure you have your work cut out for you," Lucius said, in flattering tones. Rowle looked up from the dregs of his meal—uncertain, but pleased all the same. He had been one of several younger boys Malfoy had worked on cultivating a mentor-protégée rapport with in his Hogwarts days. "All this… _internal strife_ cannot be pleasant."

Rowle was proving an especially useful contact. Well connected—but not all that bright. A handy combination.

He gave the younger man a sympathetic nod—predictably, it was returned at once.

"Everyone's _so_ paranoid these days." Alan laughed bitterly to himself. "Why would you think they'd take an interest in _you_ , Lucius? With how well connected _your_ family is—well, surely your _father_ doesn't put up with that sort of thing?"

Lucius frowned—the dupe had abandoned his potatoes and useful complaining in favor of penetrating questions. Rowle was at least clever enough to understand the gravity of the situation. Abraxas Malfoy was still someone—the higher-ups would fear any hypothetical inquiry opened if his father found out the family was under official investigation.

"It's absolutely galling, what they're doing to people," Rowle said, disgusted.

Self-possession was a lucky family trait—it helped Lucius keep a straight face. It was amusing to see how indignant his man on the inside got on his behalf. Alan's time at school had only overlapped with Lucius's long enough for the younger man to develop an admiration for him—and hope that the connection might better Rowle's situation—but he had no real understanding of the sort of person Lucius Malfoy was, beyond the face he presented to the world.

This was also very useful. A guileless dupe was, in many ways, a better contact to have at the Ministry than a paid informant or accomplice. Much cheaper, and—in its own way—far more revealing.

"There's no _rational_ reason, of course—but we all know the Ministry _isn't_ acting rationally, and hasn't been for some time. There's no one they aren't looking twice at." Lucius sneered. "And given that business with my father—"

"What, the Nobby Leach affair? That was _years_ ago." Malfoy's lip twitched, reflexively. "And anyway, nothing was ever _proven_."

Lucius smiled, thinly. People never failed to remind him, by way of veiled comments and whispered remarks in earshot, that the old scandal might've been gone—but it was not forgotten.

But as Alan said—it was never proven that a member of the Malfoy family was responsible in any way for the unfortunate ousting of the nation's first muggleborn Minister for Magic.

It didn't stop the insinuations.

"I know you've only been working here for six months, Alan—but you'll find people in this building have _long_ memories."

Rowle pushed aside his plate, as if the very idea made him lose his appetite.

"Maybe you're right. But the fact remains—if you had an intruder problem at your home, it's not from Ministry people."

Lucius settled back in his chair and nodded, slowly—as if he was being persuaded by Alan's words, and not—as was actually the case—that he had come along to think this all on his own. So—Longbottom was acting outside the purviews of his office.

It was what he suspected all along, given his source of information. Still, it wasn't enough to go on.

"In your _professional_ opinion—" Lucius went on, returning to the tone of flattery. "What would it take to get past the security of Malfoy Manor?"

"Getting in that house would be near impossible."

"What about—" Lucius twisted his ring around his finger. "Getting out?"

Alan blinked, as if he didn't quite understand the question.

"What, you mean— _leaving_ the house—undetected?" Rowle frowned. "Are you suggesting someone might've walked in through the front door and left by other means?"

"I'm not suggesting anything. Think of it as a…hypothetical."

Rowle's father was a friend of Abraxas—he'd even made the suggestions for some of the spells in their recent security upgrades. Rowles were known for magic of that kind. Their homes were like fortresses.

"Purely _hypothetically_ speaking—" His tone was careful. "I think it would take a wizard of uncommon skill—or one who had outside help."

 _Or—_ a treacherous voice in Lucius's head whispered. _Inside help._

No—surely not. _That_ wasn't possible. Or at least he didn't know enough to be sure, and Lucius _never_ acted until he was sure.

Alan looked as though he wanted to risk a follow-up question, but before he could come up with a way of delicately phrasing it, there was a knock and the door opened. Lucius didn't bother turning—the expression of faint distaste and mild coloration of the face told him all he needed to know about the intruder.

It was a woman—one that was attractive, socially unacceptable and that Rowle was embarrassed at his own interest in.

A leggy brunette sauntered into the cramped office.

"Afternoon! Sorry to interrupt—" She gave Lucius a fleeting apologetic look before turning her full attention to Rowle. "Alan, dear—did you happen to get the name of that _total dish_ who was in the office a little while ago?"

"Danielle, what are you doing here?" Allan snapped—the flush remained, even as the shock wore off. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of something—"

"Your lunch, looks like—you've got a bit of it on your face." She smirked and pointed. "Come on! You know everyone who's in and out on this floor, and you were handing off reports to Dawlish. There's no way you didn't catch his name. You're _so_ nosy."

He glanced over at Lucius, suddenly nervous.

"That is a completely unprofessional question—" he said, flustered. "And anyway, shouldn't you be working?"

"It's hard when there's dreamboats wandering in."

Alan scowled.

"I wouldn't have thought your taste would run in the way of _children_."

She smiled, knowingly.

"So you _do_ know him. Were you in the same year at school?" Danielle arched a brow. "That's funny—he seemed _so_ much more mature than you."

Rowle looked back at Lucius—more uncomfortable than ever. He steepled his fingers, as if that action made him seem older and more in control of his teasing, buxom colleagues.

"Trust me, Danielle—" He lowered his voice and looked directly at her—Lucius got the impression he was avoiding meeting his eyes. "You don't want anything to do with the individual in question."

" _You_ just don't want me to have a nice boyfriend who gives me an excuse not to keep you company on your double-shifts." Her eyes fell on a stack of parchment on his desk. "I bet it's written in there in your secretarial notes—"

She reached for them, and Rowle lunged for the stack and snatched them away from her at the last moment. Danielle put her hands on her hips and jutted out her lower lip, annoyed.

"Touchy, touchy! Fine. I'll go see if Alice knows—he's with her husband now, in the canteen."

"May Frank have better luck than _you_ did."

She gave him a filthy look and stalked out of the room. Rowle began shuffling papers unnecessarily on his desk, while Malfoy waited for him to break the silence.

"Sorry about that—" Rowle got up from his desk and hurried around to the door that she'd left hanging open. "Danielle can be a little—she's—"

"She seemed _amusing_." Lucius's tone had just the right amount of contempt. "A…friend of yours?"

"Just an acquaintance," Alan corrected hastily, snapping it shut.

Malfoy's mouth thinned.

"Who was it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The man she came to ask about." Alan's shoulders slumped. "Come now, Rowle. That witch was right. You do _always_ know."

His ears went red—but not from the flattery, this time.

"It was no one—just an Auror candidate. We've got _so many_ trainees—"

"—Who all have names, I trust."

Rowle walked back around to his desk. Malfoy's eyes followed him as he did—he stumbled, and in his haste, hit the sharp corner of the edge.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you didn't want to tell her in front of me."

"I didn't," Alan admitted, after a moment of dickering. "I didn't want to say anything, because, well—" He fiddled with the neat stack of quills on the corner of his desk. "I thought it would be—awkward."

"In what way?"

Rowle heaved a sigh.

"If you _must_ know, it was your wife's cousin."

The smile froze on Lucius's face.

"Evan Rosier?" he asked, politely, after a moment—knowing full well it was an absurd question.

"No, no—on the other side." Rowle winced. "You know—it was the one…the one who ran off."

It took a moment for Rowle's word to sink in before he understood.

"The blood traitor?"

"Yes—Sirius Black." He gave Lucius a wry look. "He always _was_ a preener. Doesn't appear that's changed."

Something stirred in the corner of his mind—an elusive thought, suggestive.

Regulus's _brother…_ the blood traitor. In the Auror Office, of all places.

Curious…

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything—" Rowle continued, blathering a little—it annoyed Lucius. He needed silence to think. "It's just that I didn't want to offend."

"Why would you think I'd be offended?" Lucius asked, a tad impatiently—the thread of something was here, though he didn't yet know what.

The younger man raised his hands, in a slightly defensive position.

"Well, you know how it is—no one likes to be reminded of unsavory relations."

"The connection is…unfortunate," Lucius agreed, slowly. "It can hardly be helped, though."

Rowle nodded, still looking nervous.

"We had a great-uncle who was a squib," he confessed, wrinkling his nose. "It's so much easier when they can be counted on to get well out of the way. As it is…" He plopped back down in his chair. "Troublesome relations more often than not remain in one's orbit and continue to cause—unpleasantness."

Lucius found his mind wandering—the word snapped him back to the present.

"If only there was some way to set an alert for them so one knew they were coming."

"If only." Malfoy sniffed. "Your fears were unfounded, at any rate. I've hardly anything to do with it. He ran off the summer after we were married." His gray eyes gleamed. "He was a member of Narcissa's family, not mine."

The conversation seemed as though it was going to peter out—and that Rowle was glad for it, when something in Malfoy prompted him to say—

"I haven't seen _him_ since my wedding."

He had a dim memory of it—a sullen teenager in the corner, surly and restless, and markedly different from everyone else there. At that point he'd been a Gryffindor so long one couldn't scrub it off in polite society.

" _He_ was here for an interview…" Lucius murmured, quietly. He tried to square the image in his mind but found it difficult. Too many unknown variables. "Will he get the job, Rowle?"

Alan shrugged.

"I shouldn't think he'll have much luck with Moody—too flashy. He doesn't go for that type, I don't care _how_ good your NEWTs are." Rowle's expression darkened. "Women might like it, but the people who count don't."

"You know him—well?"

Rowle, Lucius realized—was closer in age to Narcissa's black sheep cousin—he was a year or two above Regulus. They might've even been in the same year.

"Who, Sirius?" Alan snorted. "Oh, yes. We used to see quite a bit of each other—before school. Families travel in the same social circle, you know. He was never popular with the other boys—even then."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Probably something to do with none of _our_ fathers liking _his_." He smirked. "I think because our mothers carried a torch for him. I know mine did. Apparently Orion Black was quite the 'catch' in his day."

Lucius tilted his head, thoughtfully—Rowle continued, without prompting,

"I get the impression there was some resentment there, among witches of a certain age—they all wanted to marry him, but—" He shrugged. "None of them were good enough for Black—had to go for his cousin, instead." He laughed. "Women never forget a slight."

Alan shrugged his shoulders, circumspect.

"I suppose that's just like them, though. Very clannish, the Blacks—stick to their own. And arrogant, everyone knows—"

He remembered who he was talking to and fell silent. Lucius left the remark where it was. Whether he agreed with Rowle's assessment of Narcissa's family or not, he was not going to stoop to acknowledging it.

"So—he had no friends, did he?"

"Not really—well—actually—" Rowle paused. "He had his brother. He and Regulus used to be quite close—before Sirius went full blood traitor and they fell out. You must have heard something about it."

"Why would you think _that,_ Rowle?"

Alan seemed surprised by the vehemence of the question.

"I just thought—you see quite a bit of Regulus, don't you?" he asked, in a careful voice. "I thought your wife was very fond of him."

Lucius tempered his voice, smoothed his cloak—recovered his calm after that rare flair-up. As it happened, Narcissa was fond of her little cousin—but the last thing he needed was Alan Rowle drawing lines of connection where it was better he _not._

"Regulus has never mentioned his brother _once_ in my presence."

Alan played with the inkstand on his desk.

"Understandable, I suppose." He sighed. "Who would want to be reminded of _that_?"

They let the subject drop, but something of it lingered over the rest of the audience, and when Lucius left, twenty minutes later, a faint impression remained in his mind.

Disbelief. A Black as an _Auror_ —one could hardly dream of a more fantastical prospect.

* * *

"Is my son here?"

Remus looked up from the classified advertisements he'd been pouring over—one from the _Daily Prophet_ , the other the _London Times—_ to find himself staring into a pair of familiar gray eyes.

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."

Lupin had not seen Orion Black in the flesh since the first morning the arrangement to hide Regulus in the flat had been agreed upon, so he was surprised to see Sirius's father turn up, unannounced, in the middle of the day.

The Black patriarch, who had not bothered to knock on the flat's front door, did not bother to remove his cloak. He carried a large package and seemed to Remus to be harried and in an ill-temper.

" _What_ did you just say to me?"

Lupin folded the newspapers up and pushed them to the side of the table before standing.

"Well, Mr. Black—" He smiled, faintly. "You _do_ have two of them."

Remus, unlike Orion's elder son, was very good at keeping his voice mild and his tone measured—so good, in fact, that the older man stared at Lupin for a long moment with deep suspicion, not quite sure if Sirius's friend was being cheeky with him or not.

"I was referring to the _master_ of this unfortunate domicile." Mr. Black gave the sitting room a single, scornful look. "Will he _deign_ to grace me with his presence?"

Remus flinched. This man's gift for cutting sarcasm was exquisite.

"Sirius is out for the morning, sir—he did say that he would be back sometime after lunch, if you wanted to…"

Mr. Black had already crossed the room, and was too busy unloading a enormous book onto the coffee table to take note of Remus's feeble invitation.

"I've no time to dawdle." He placed a letter—closed with a heavy red wax seal, and addressed with an 'S'— "This is for him. I'll be back at five to explain it in more detail. He's to do nothing until I arrive but look it over."

Lupin stared at him. He assumed he was expected to convey this information—Orion had the careless style of delivery that signified, in his experience, a man who is used to giving unspoken orders. But as he also seemed like a thorough wizard, Remus was just as happy to assume that the letter he'd written Sirius said as much, and not to have to break that news to his friend.

"Where's the other one?" Mr. Black remarked, glancing at the empty sofa with irritation. Presumably that was where 'the other one' was usually located when he did come by his son's apartment.

"In the bedroom."

"At _this_ hour? It's past eleven."

"I don't think he's been sleeping too well at night," Lupin said, in an even, light tone. "I sometimes hear what sounds like—pacing."

Orion Black looked around—for the first time really took note of Remus. He felt the weight of that gaze tangibly.

"Do _you_ live here?"

It was the sort of question that, when said like _that_ , implied there was only one correct answer a sane human being could give.

"No, not really—but sometimes Sirius lets me—" Remus hesitated. "—Erm, sometimes I'll stay for a night or two. Just—on the sofa."

Mr. Black's eyes darted to the newspapers—with all the jobs circled in heavy black ink, clearly visible in his eye-line—then back to Remus. His gaze lingered on the patched elbows of the jumper. A near-lifetime of guarded self-control had taught Remus a lesson or two about how he was perceived— _he_ would never be mistaken as a member of the smart set. Mr. Black had taken the measure of him easily.

"Do you want me to go wake him up?"

An opaque emotion flickered across Orion Black's face.

"That—won't be necessary."

"Well, than…"

There was an awkward pause.

"…Was there anything _else_ you needed, Mr. Black?"

It seemed like the polite thing to say when he'd asked it—Remus had not expected Orion to narrow his eyes and tilt his head and _think about it_.

"As it happens—there was." He crossed over to the armchair and sank down into it. All his harriedness, his concerns about the time, everything that had seemed so paramount to him only moments earlier—vanished. "I wanted a word. Indulge me, would you?"

He gestured at the spot on the couch directly across from himself. Intellectually, Remus was very aware that Mr. Black had no power over him, but there was something about the artlessly commanding way in which he'd phrased the question that made the werewolf feel it was impossible to refuse.

He crossed the room to the sofa and sat down.

Mr. Black stared at him for a long while.

Lupin was overcome with a somewhat irrational desire to offer refreshment. Perhaps a drink? Brandy? Except this wasn't his house and he knew very well that Sirius had nothing in the cupboards that would suitable to serve such a man.

 _And it's probably too early for brandy, anyway._

Mr. Black drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and studied him. Remus was struck by the impression of keen intelligence behind his eyes—a penetration born of a lifetime of discipline, but that he guessed was also a natural gift. He had seen that look on Sirius's face only a handful of times, usually after a night of hard drinking—when, by some miracle, his friend would say aloud an insight so profound it appeared to have come through transcendent means.

"You must take after your mother," Orion observed, suddenly.

"I'm—sorry?"

"You really don't look at _all_ like your father."

This was the last thing Lupin had been expecting to break the silence.

"I—wasn't aware you _knew_ my father, sir."

"Oh, yes," Orion said, mildly. "Well—not all that well. But seven years at school together is not _nothing_. I remember him being rather clever—and droll. He's never mentioned it to you?"

Remus shook his head slowly.

"Ah, well—I'd _say_ I'm surprised—but I'm not. There's no love lost there." Mr. Black shrugged, carelessly. "I don't think he ever cared for me—or my family."

"Why would you—"

"—He told me as much. 'Proud and unscrupulous wizards perpetuating a system of dynastic rule' were, I believe, the exact words used." He laughed at the memory—a quiet chuckle, quite unlike his son's brazen 'ha!' "We almost came to blows, if I remember rightly."

Remus stared at him. Orion Black smiled—with unexpected humor.

"You needn't look shocked. Being fourteen at the time, the duel was short-lived and hardly exciting." His smile turned sly. "Does he object to your friendship with my son?"

"No, not—at all," Remus answered, automatically—and immediately heard the hesitation, a mark of his own uncertainty.

Knowing how much having _friends_ meant to his only child, Lyhall had never said anything disparaging about any of them—not out loud. Even at twelve years of age Remus could see that he was uncertain about the wildest of his new friends. Mr. Lupin was polite, but not warm to Sirius, as he was with James and Peter—always a little on his guard, as if he didn't quite trust him as he did the others.

He had never told Lyhall about that night at the Willow for a reason.

"He was a prefect, too, if I remember correctly," Orion continued, voice bland. "Did you follow in his footsteps?"

"Yes, I did."

There was a small spasm in Orion's cheek.

"What is he up to these days—still roaming about the world hunting ghouls?"

"I—yes."

"I read an essay of his in the Grimsby Periodical on a colony of poltergeists in—was it Borneo or Bora Bora?"

"Borneo," Remus said, his voice faint.

"Fascinating study. I found his observations very—adroit." His hard eyes glinted. "But it does seem strange to me that a man in his line of work would have to go so far afield, when there are so many…dark creatures— _closer_ to home."

A long silence followed this. The longer it stretched on the more significant it seemed.

"He's—back in Wales, actually—with my mother."

Not by his own choice. Lyhall had been called back by the Ministry—they said they couldn't do without his consultation on dark creatures, and as Hope was not well, anyway…

"Who _is_ your mother?" Mr. Black asked, mildly. "Do I know her?"

"I very much doubt it."

His voice was decidedly colder than it had been up until this point. Mr. Black heard the change—and immediately, Remus was happy to see, took its meaning.

" _Ah—_ I see."

There was another long silence.

"Did you have something _else_ you wanted to—speak to me about, Mr. Black?"

He drummed his fingers on the arm again. Remus got the sense that he was debating whether he wanted to speak.

"I—thought you might be able to clear up a point that has been puzzling me this past week."

The older wizard reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a letter.

He made no point of handing it over to Remus, or even reading it himself —he merely turned the envelope over and over again in his palm.

"Tell me—why isn't James Potter ever here?"

"Excuse me?"

"For some time I have been led to believe that he and my son are nigh inseparable—but this entire week neither my wife nor I have seen hide nor hair of him. It's always you or his wife." Orion narrowed his eyes. "Why is that?"

"James was in the flat the night before last. He was here with Regulus."

Mr. Black's lip curled.

"Is that so?" He considered this new information thoughtfully—it did not appear to be of much concern. "That was, of course, an evening my son was certain _we_ would not be."

Lupin wondered, for a moment, if there was any point in lying—but one look into Sirius's father's eyes dispelled the notion. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't think for a moment I need to explain to you, of all people, Mr. Black—why it is that Professor Dumbledore recommended James stay away."

At the suggestion of Dumbledore's meddling, Orion let out a snort—but it was not one of surprise.

"Oh? Please do explain it to me."

"He felt there might be—some…bad blood between you."

He immediately knew that he had overstepped the invisible boundary line of propriety that governed Orion Black's life. The coldness Sirius's father exuded was immediate and palpable.

"You said you're around here often," he observed, abruptly changing the subject. "I assume you consider yourself an _intimate_ of my son."

"He's one of my three best friends in the whole world."

The older man went back to turning the letter over in his hands. It was at that moment Remus became conscious of a subtle change in manner. This was not an interrogation, as such—if it had ever been one at all.

"You seem like a sensible young man, from the little I've seen of you. Rational, measured." Remus blinked. "I cannot imagine what on _earth_ you see in him."

Remus burst out laughing.

"Is that amusing?"

"Very." He would never have presumed Mr. Black was joking with him—he doubted he was capable of it. "To tell you the truth, it's one of the funniest things anyone's ever said to me."

Mr. Black looked up from his letter, scoffing quietly.

"I can't see _why_."

"Most people, Mr. Black—" He pressed his hands against the sofa cushions and straightened up. "—Would be asking Sirius what _he_ sees in _me_."

Orion stared at him—perturbed. He was not a stupid man—from the little he'd seen of Mr. Black, Remus thought the mind of the wizard sitting across from him was rather keen, in fact—but he had a rather dim view of his eldest son.

And now he was asking, albeit clumsily—about his son's social life.

"Do you not know that Sirius was the most popular boy at school when he was there?"

Another blank stare.

"I've never given it much thought," Orion admitted, nonchalantly. "Was he _really_?"

Now it was Remus's turn to stare.

"Yes!"

"How odd. Can't say I see the appeal, myself."

Couldn't see the—was he _blind_?

"He was only the cleverest—top of the year in nearly every subject—best looking by far, life of every party, funniest wizard in his year—and best friends with the top Quidditch star of the school." Remus smiled, ruefully. "I was considered lucky that _he_ deigned to hang around with _me._ "

"School must have changed a great deal since I was there, if _that_ is what the student body is impressed by." Mr. Black examined his fingernails carelessly. "My impression of his educational years is marked by endless letters detailing disciplinary infractions."

"Oh, yes—there was quite a lot of that," Remus laughed. "But he was so brilliant most of the teachers didn't care."

"An attitude that I'm sure was gratifying to their egos as educators," Mr. Black observed, cuttingly. "But it did very little to curb my son's arrogance."

A smile reflexively tugged at Lupin's lips, and he could not resist the urge to tease.

"He was like _that_ before he set foot in _any_ classroom." He added, quietly, "I suspect it's a quality a little closer to home."

Remus felt no small amount of satisfaction at Orion's look of displeasure. Mr. Black stood up and crossed over to the table where the Remus's newspapers still lay, sprawled out. He traced his finger over the Prophet.

"You hold Sirius in very high esteem," he remarked, after a moment.

"He's—been a good friend to me."

It was the sort of thing that Remus could say with absolute sincerity, even if he knew that it was not, strictly speaking, _entirely_ true.

"But you also aren't blind to his…shortcomings."

Remus stared hard at Orion's back. The way he was holding his shoulders reminded him of his friend—emotional restraint, almost painful in its formality. He suspected it had been taught rather than inherited.

"No. He's very easy to like, even when he sometimes—" Orion turned his head sharply. "—Goes too far."

He felt it would be an insult to Sirius's father's intelligence to explain his meaning.

"He's very impudent."

"He was more popular with the student body than his teachers, I'll grant that. He's the sort of person people naturally gravitate towards. He doesn't even have to try, really. People just follow him."

"Off a cliff, even."

"You _really_ didn't know that Sirius was that well liked."

Orion tossed the newspapers back onto the table and turned around fully.

"He's my son and a Black. That he should have been the top of his class in school goes without saying." Mr. Black paused. "As for the rest—what other people think of him is of little concern to me."

 _Then why are you still here, Mr. Black?_

"Sirius always _did_ say that his parents were the only people he'd never be able to impress."

Midway through the act of tucking the letter back in his pocket—Orion Black froze.

It seemed so obvious to him—so it never occurred to him to withhold such a fact from the older man. But seeing the shock—followed by a penetrating look of insight veering into cunning—Remus was overcome with the feeling that admitting this to Sirius's father had been a _huge_ blunder.

"My son said that to you?"

He swallowed. His mouth was dry.

"More than once."

"What _else_ did he say to you about us?"

A demand—forceful, immediate—he felt blessed that he could answer, with all honesty—

"…Very little."

Orion's hard eyes glinted like polished diamonds, hard and obstinate. It was nothing—nothing he shouldn't have been able to guess, an admission of very little.

Why then, did he feel that he'd betrayed Sirius's confidences, somehow?

But before he could recover ground, make excuses, however feeble—Orion had pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. Every line of his face and movement of his body suggested that he was quite done with Remus.

"Ah—that time already?" He clicked the cover shut. "I must be off—lunch appointment. I'll thank you to pass on that message to my son." He smiled, politely—if he'd been wearing a hat he certainly would have doffed it. "I appreciate your candor. This conversation has been quite…edifying."

Had it? From where Lupin was sitting it hadn't been. Remus stood up, feeling, oddly enough, like a person whose just gotten done with a job interview and not sure where they stand.

He resisted the urge to hold out his hand for Orion to shake it.

"I'll go out through the fire." His brow furrowed. "Perhaps I can even stir my younger son from his respite."

"Mr. Black, I—"

Orion stopped at the door and turned around at the door.

"—Yes?"

Lupin looked up at the older, taller man—stared stupidly. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say—except he felt like Orion needed reassurance of some kind.

"I…hope you have a good Christmas, sir."

The look he got in return was haughty, the nod stiff—but he felt better when Mr. Black closed the door behind him, leaving Remus in the living room alone.

Lupin sank back down into the couch. running both hands through his prematurely graying hair. He let out the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding and slouched down.

Sirius's father had always been a rather opaque figure in his mind—less distinct, less vibrant than the mother that his friend could never resist colorfully abusing when under the influence of more than four drinks.

That verbal tussle had done very little to pull back the veil—

And ungodly BANGING on the door jolted him up.

"—Oi! Hey, Sirius!"

Remus sprung out of the seat like a scalded cat. He sprinted across the room and pressed his ear against the door.

"—Sirius, come on! I know you're there, I can _see_ you moving around through the blinds!" The slight whine in the voice pitched up the end of this plea. Remus took a leaf out of Sirius's book and began swearing loudly under his breath. "I need to talk to you."

Remus remained still, hoping against all hope that he'd go away—but knowing full well, after the third series of bangs, that he would not.

Peter, was, if nothing else, patient.

He sighed and, after a moment of rehearsing every possible answer to any questions he'd get, opened the door.

"About _time_ —" Remus flashed Peter Pettigrew one of his benign, tired smiles. "Oh—Moony…it's you."

"Yes—just me." He patted the shorter boy on his shoulder. "Hello, Peter."

His friend peered past his shoulder into the flat—then met Remus's gaze, sheepishly.

"Hullo, Remus."

"That was quite the shout. You must have something important to say to Sirius."

"N-no—not…not really." Peter bit his lip and looked down, embarrassed. "I just—you know, I think he's been avoiding me, so I thought I'd…just…bang on the door."

Remus shook his head and smiled at his friend's embarrassment. He was obviously lying about the urgency—Peter didn't yell that way every day—but didn't want to admit the real reason why he'd come. Remus wondered if Peter had a girl he wanted to ask Sirius's advice about. The two of them had always held Sirius in awe in that respect—even James, married to the prettiest woman they knew, could not compare in terms of sheer capacity for charm.

"That makes two of us, then. I came here looking for him—" He lied, smoothly. "He's out. I bet he won't be back until tonight."

"What makes you say that?"

"There's a new woman in his sights," Remus said, dryly. Peter chewed his bottom lip. "It's keeping him occupied."

"Did he have a date last night?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe he didn't come back at all."

Remus sighed, heavily.

"Maybe."

"I think I'll just wait for him, in case—"

"It could be hours. Tell you what, Wormtail—" He put an arm around Peter's shoulder. "Let's go out for lunch—my treat. I'll take you to that Italian restaurant you like in Covent Garden. I'm flush."

Peter's watery eyes narrowed.

"You're _never_ flush."

He grimaced. He was the only person in their social circle even more hard-up than Peter.

"Early Christmas present from my dad."

Peter stared at him—gave him one of those dim looks that was half-endearing, half-exasperating—before nodding slow agreement.

"Alright…" He mumbled and pointed his finger in Remus's chest. "As long as it's _your_ treat. I'm dead broke."

He let out an inner sigh of relief—at least Pete's stomach could be counted on for reliability. Peter turned to walk out down the hall and out the noticed Lupin remained firmly planted in the door.

"Aren't you coming, Remus?"

"Of—course."

He didn't let himself glance back at the door after he shut it behind him—tried to ignore each pang of anxiety he felt as they walked further and further down the hallway.

Regulus would be alright for a little while—just at least until they were safely far enough away that he could shake off Wormtail and double back.

* * *

"He didn't even raise his voice."

Frank dropped the two plates onto the canteen table with a rattling clatter.

"Considering he called me all this way, I thought he'd at least—" Sirius waved his arms around while Longbottom pushed out the chair. "—I don't know, _shout_ a little."

The Ministry canteen bustled with activity—nearly every table full of low-and-mid-level employees, each trying to catch a quick break before getting back to the grind.

"Moody is a master of not meeting expectations." Frank pushed the tray at him. "Did you _want_ him to yell, Black?"

Sirius poked at his fried fish, dismally. Just the smell of it—one of his favorite dishes—reminded him painfully of breakfast with his mother.

"I wanted to get it out of the way. Whenever people put that off, it feels as though they're holding out for something more unpleasant."

Frank stuck his fork into his plate of shepherds' pie with the gusto of a man who has earned his daily bread.

"Cheer up." He thrust forward the butterbeer he'd procured for Sirius at the counter. "We've all been through it. It's over now. Consider it a rite of passage."

"There's a part of me that thinks he brought me in there to size me up."

Frank gave him a critical look over the rim of his glass.

"I'm sure that was part of it."

Sirius knew better than to express his fear to Frank that Moody didn't trust him. Longbottom would point out, quite rightly, that Moody trusted no one.

It was different with him, though. He couldn't put a finger on why—but he knew it was. Perhaps it was different for Frank, too, now that he knew that it had not been a girl he was hiding in the other room of his flat—but his brother, the Death Eater Longbottom's office had probably been tracking the movements of for months.

"By the way, Black…" Longbottom lowered his glass of cider and smiled. "Did you thank your father?"

Sirius scowled with such dramatic intensity that Frank actually laughed.

"Somehow, it was a bit hard to squeeze that in—" He tapped a finger against the lid of his drink. "—Between all the ranting and raving in his study."

Frank Longbottom was not fooled for a moment.

"You should. You know he probably saved your life."

"Not out of affection, believe me." Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "He couldn't let me out of Christmas hols with them, that's all."

Longbottom's expression sobered.

"You should patch things up," he said, gently. "It's not worth it to fight—not these days."

Sirius sighed.

"He doesn't want a 'thank you', Frank—he wants an _apology_."

"Maybe you should give him both. Be the bigger man."

Sirius shoved a sodden chip in his mouth and chewed. It tasted like wet paper.

"You know I'm going to hear this from Dumbledore tomorrow, don't you?" he asked, sourly. "You don't have to give it to me, too."

"Good advice is good advice." Frank's eyes suddenly narrowed. "Easy—don't look—but there's someone watching us."

Instantly tense and alert, like a gun-dog, Sirius leaned over the table.

"What are you talking—?"

"—I didn't want to say anything, but he's been staring at you since we sat down."

Sweat trickled down Sirius's neck.

"What does he look like?" he asked, in a low voice. Longbottom casually glanced over Sirius's shoulder to apprise their voyeur.

"Young—couldn't be any older than thirty—I don't recognize him." Further inspection made Frank relax a bit. "Looks a bit gormless, to tell you the truth—he's got eyeholes cut out of his newspaper, so not exactly great shakes at espionage—"

"—Him and me both—"

"Only other distinguishing characteristic is the spots."

Sirius spun around.

"Oh, for the love of—it's _Bletchley_!"

Indeed, it was—though as soon as Sirius turned in his seat, the young legal apprentice hastily covered his face with the paper.

"What the hell is _he_ doing here?"

"Who's Bletchley?"

"He's nobody, a prat—he's—" Sirius let out a string of curses. "—Here, I'll introduce you."

Bletchley was still pretending not to see Sirius furiously waving in his direction, but when the younger man called out "Oi! _Bletch_!" and half the canteen turned their heads, the apprentice had no choice but to rise from his chair and sheepishly cross to their table.

He stopped between them and offered a hapless smile.

"F-fancy seeing you here, Mr. Black."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"What, no false whiskers?" He stuck his hand in Longbottom's direction. The Auror was trying to get a handle on the relationship between Black and this newcomer—he could read very easily that Sirius was annoyed, but not at all threatened—but he remained on his guard. "Pull up a chair and join us, Bletchley. The more the merrier, as I always say."

He obeyed—only hesitating a moment.

"I'm—erm—" He looked over at Frank, who was surveying him coolly. "—Obliged to you, Mr. Black."

Sirius pulled a face.

"Did Burke tell you to call me that?" He scowled. "He's not here—don't stand on false ceremony. Call me 'Sirius' or 'you prick', but I'd prefer if you leave the 'Mister Black' routine at the door."

"Who's Burke?" Frank asked, before the other man could protest that his use of formal language was appropriate and a requirement of his boss.

"He's the vulture my grandfather employs to handle his affairs and spy on his relatives for him."

"Belgravius Burke is my employer," Bletchley provided, in a tired voice. "A well respected solicitor."

There was an awkward pause—Sirius realized his mistake.

"Oh, right—introductions. This is Frank Longbottom—the Auror. Frank, this is—" He looked over at the apprentice, a thought occurring to him. "—I suppose you have a Christian name, don't you, Bletch?"

Bletchley sighed.

"It's Martin."

"Right. Martin." He tested it out—the name fit. "Martin Bletchley—one of the finest legal minds of our generation, I'm sure."

"Nice to meet you," Frank said, bemused, shaking his hand. "You look about my age. Didn't go to Hogwarts, did you?"

"I wish," he returned, with a slightly depressed voice. "I was at Beauxbatons."

Sirius's eyebrows both went up. He hadn't suspected that Bletchley was well-travelled—let alone that he'd grown up overseas. He was just about the least sophisticated wizard Sirius thought he'd ever set eyes on—at least in Burke's office.

"Bletchley—Bletchley…that name sounds familiar. From the diplomatic corps, right?" Frank snapped his fingers. "Isn't your father the ambassador to Lichtenstein?"

"He's the _attaché_ to the ambassador of Lichtenstein," Bletchley corrected, dismally. "There's a big difference."

Frank and Sirius exchanged a look.

"In what way?"

"It's most of the responsibilities and none of the honors."

Martin let out the long-suffering sigh of a man who has had to explain this far too many times.

"He was _attaché_ to the Ambassador to Lithuania, before this, and Denmark before that. It's a bit of a habit of his, being second in command. He says I need to break the tradition. That's why he set me up with this job. He says Mr. Burke will 'make me'."

Sirius laughed, humorlessly.

"Well, that makes sense—I can't see anyone working for Burke by choice." Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Does he have you tailing me as part of your duties, now, Bletch?"

"Not—precisely. That is—I didn't follow you, but I did…" He looked around, shiftily. "Know you'd be here."

Frank lowered his cup, slowly.

"Would your grandfather's solicitor _really_ have you followed?"

"We had a bit of a disagreement yesterday." Another look exchanged between Frank and Sirius. "So—how you'd know I was here, then?"

"You may want to take more care with who you allow to pass on your messages, in future, sir."

Sirius slapped his hand on the table. Frank snorted.

"This is what comes of trusting Mundungus with anything." He folded his arms in front of his chest. "I have to get back to the office. Is this going to be…a problem, Black?"

He meant Martin. Bletchley twisted his fingers nervously, alarmed that the hotshot Auror was asking if he was 'a problem.' Sirius sized him up for a moment, weighing his options.

"He's fine, Frank," he said at last, shrugging. "This is a personal matter between us. Nothing to do with…you know."

Frank debated whether he trusted this answer for a moment before nodding.

"Then I'll leave you to it." He nodded at Martin. "Give my regards to Lichtenstein."

The fleeting look he gave Sirius as he left the table suggested that he'd be asking for a more detailed explanation later.

Martin Bletchley moved around to the seat recently vacated by Frank. Sirius eyed him, wearily.

"Why'd Burke send you to the Ministry, Martin—really?"

"I'm picking something up for him—from your grandfather." He grimaced. "I just popped into here for a quick cup of tea in the meantime."

"You're a dreadful liar, you know." Sirius smiled—not without humor, in spite of his annoyance. "You can be straight with me. I know this was no coincidence."

Bletchley shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Burke wanted to know who you were meeting," he admitted, reluctantly. "He told me to wait in the canteen and see if you turned up."

"Of course, the clever thing to do would've been to leave before we spotted you watching us like the Pink Panther." Bletchley pinked. "So—now that you know—you going to tell him?"

"How much is it worth to you if I don't?"

Sirius found himself, against all odds—slightly impressed at the other man's boldness.

"Not much. As far as public record is concerned, I'm here for a job interview in the Auror office." He gestured around them. "For all I know you're not the _only_ spy of his in this room. Any one of his informants could tell him they saw me here, if they so chose. I've got nothing to hide. Between you and me, though—"

He leaned closer.

"—I'd just as soon _not_ make it easy for him to keep tabs on me."

Martin nodded, somewhat despairingly—his aspect gloomy.

"I don't think I'm cut out for this work." He ran his fingers down his shirt collar. "It's not what I thought the legal profession would be."

"Life—a never-ending source of thwarted hopes."

For the person time since they'd become acquainted, Martin Bletchley gave the younger man—at least 8 years his junior—a look that could be read as caustic.

"Look, I'm—sorry I was a bit curt with you, yesterday." Sirius took a swig of butterbeer—sloppily, so some dribbled down his chin. "It was nothing personal."

"Don't worry—I never take things personally." Bletchley laughed, bitterly. "Mr. Burke says I'm such a non-entity in this country I'll never have to."

Sirius passed over this profoundly depressing comment without remark. He gesticulated with feeling.

"It's just—that Burke and I have a history—most of which is unpleasant—and being around him brings out my inner…prick."

He noticed Bletchley eyeing his cold chips hungrily.

"You want that?" Martin looked up, embarrassed at having been caught out. Sirius pushed the plate towards him. "I'd get you a fresh lunch, only I'm a bit short on funds at the present. In case you're wondering, that's why I haven't offered you that bribe you've been angling for since you sat down."

Martin dug into the cold, slightly congealed fried fish with a laugh.

"Right—no funds except the pile in that expense account of yours, you mean." Sirius stared at him, blankly. "The money—you know, that your father gives you."

"What are you on about? He doesn't give me any money." He glared at him—defensiveness crept in. "I'm a disowned and disgraced man."

"Disgraced maybe—but not disowned. Mr. Burke showed that Fletcher man the receipt for the balance that's been deposited in an account in your name every month since you came of age. It's considerable."

Sirius went pale. Bletchley dropped a cold chip back on the plate.

"You really didn't know, then! Mr. Burke told me you didn't draw on it—but I didn't believe him, at first. He says you're too proud to take money from your father." Bletchley stared at him in wonder. "I guess it's true."

Realization washed over Sirius in waves. The account—the expense account that had been accumulating interest since he was born, that he was going to get some form of access to when he came of age. He'd run away from home two months shy of turning seventeen…it had never occurred to him to check and see if he could draw from it.

Like his continued status as heir to his father, just the idea of it seemed—absurd.

"When were you discussing this?"

"This morning, after he got rid of Fletcher."

"No wonder my ears were burning." Sirius glared. "What _else_ has Burke told you about me?"

Martin shrugged.

"A bit. That you ran away from home three years ago—but that you're not formally disowned as such. I heard about your motorbike, too. Did you really enchant one to fly?" Sirius grinned and nodded. Martin let out a low whistle. "Very daring, sir—given your family's reputation. They don't seem like the types to approve of such a thing."

"Well, I don't consider it any of their business," Sirius said, frankly. "I'm attempting to cut all ties with them—I suppose your boss let it slip that was why I was there yesterday?"

"Hey may have mentioned something of the sort." Bletchley hesitated. "He seems to think you're …afraid of them."

"Why would I be afraid of a bunch of musty, arrogant and out-of-touch purebloods?"

"Because you're so like them." Bletchley pressed on. "He says that's why you dress like a Muggle—to distinguish yourself from your family." He tilted his head. "He also says it doesn't really work—that anyone who saw you'd would know at once who you are."

He thought of Crouch and felt his lip curl—and then he remembered Colette Battancourt.

"Burke doesn't know what he's talking about," Sirius snapped back, moodily. "Anyway, even if I _had_ known about that money—it's my father's, not mine. I would never take a galleon from him."

"That's your affair, of course—but it is in _your_ name, not his," Martin pointed out, archly. "Technically speaking, that makes it _your_ money. You can't say you don't have any, even if its origins are…undesirable."

"Are you accusing me of pretending to be poor to prove a point, Bletchley?"

Martin said nothing, though his look spoke volumes. Sirius frowned, irked at the expression he saw there—he was missing the point entirely, didn't he see?

Principles were at stake—and anyway, Bletchley didn't understand his family at all, yet.

"The thing about money, Martin—that money in particular—is that it comes with all sorts of strings attached."

"I could use some strings right about now," his companion replied, gloomily. "Strings sound nice."

Sirius's expression softened.

"Is it that bad?"

"I've no connections to speak of."

"Family?"

"Half-blood on both sides—and they aren't the sides where it's easy to hide." He sighed. "It's made things tricky for me. Practicing law in this country requires an apprenticeship, and all the choice placements go to the swotty purebloods—no offense, sir."

"None taken." He leaned forward. "Listen, Martin—I like you. I feel a certain amount of sympathy —we're both men stuck in unpleasant situations we'd just as well forget. Maybe we can help one another…extricate ourselves from them."

His companion took his eyes off the table and fixed Sirius with a supremely sarcastic expression.

"Yes, my terrible job is very similar to the enormous fortune you're trying to get out of inheriting."

Sirius scowled, good-naturedly.

"You know, I think I preferred it when you called me "'Mister Black'. No one likes sarcasm in a lawyer." He rolled his eyes. "Tell me, since you're on your way to meet him—has Burke told my grandfather about my visit yesterday?"

"Oh, no—he hasn't said a word."

He let out a sigh of relief. Burke was playing the wait and see game. Excellent. That would buy Sirius time to clean up the mess—the mess he was starting to see was possibly of his own making.

"How can you be sure?"

"Easy. I copy out all his correspondence for him."

"He trusts you that much?" Sirius asked, surprised.

Bletchley shrugged, noncommittal.

"I suppose he thinks as I don't know anyone in this country, I can't give away his secrets—even if I wanted to."

"Well, that changes today, Bletch." Sirius clapped him on the shoulder. "You have a friend, now."

"Are we friends, sir?"

"Sirius," he corrected, irritably. "And yes, we are. I'm going to help you, Martin."

In spite of his skepticism, Bletchley's mood seemed to perk.

"In exchange for what?"

Sirius grinned—a grin Remus Lupin or James Potter would have recognized instantly.

"A little favor…"

* * *

"Ah! Young Malfoy—over here."

Lucius spotted him immediately—even amidst the large crowd mingling in the antechamber of the courtroom, he stood out. Arcturus, like everyone in his family, had a way of drawing the eye. Even an elderly and stoop-shouldered Black was still a Black.

He waved Lucius over, and the Malfoy heir made his way to the door, where the Black patriarch stood slightly apart from his fellow members of the wizengamot. He was watching the rabble with the mild look of disdain that nearly always graced his features.

By the time Lucius had reached him his expression had slipped back into shrewd inscrutability.

"Good of you to catch me in-between sessions."

Lucius gave him a slightly ingratiating smile and held up a large bag of gold.

"Your winnings from the other night—and my father's compliments for a well played game." Lucius dropped the sack in Arcturus's hand. "If this is any indication, you are the consummate gamester, sir."

"Hardly. Abraxas let me win." Arcturus chuckled, coldly. "Humoring an old man on his birthday. Still—there's more than one path to victory in life."

Malfoy nodded. Arcturus gave him a sly, sideways look.

"I hope you didn't come all this way for such—" He hefted the bag of gold carelessly in one hand. "—A trifling errand."

"Oh, no—I was coming up to London as it was, I'm meeting Narcissa and her friend for dinner before we go to the theatre tonight."

Lucius scanned the sea of witches and wizards, all dressed in the deep purple robes that marked an official tribunal day.

 _More testimonies by supposed witnesses…_

They wouldn't learn anything the Dark Lord didn't want them to know, Lucius thought—almost feeling pity. He turned back towards Arcturus. The old was watching him intently, his cold eyes glittering in that way that made lesser wizards feel small.

He was a Malfoy, and immune to the effect.

"And anyway—I never pass up a chance to go to the Ministry these days."

And Arcturus gave him an excuse. Of course, the Malfoy name meant that he had his ways of getting around, but with the new security policies in place, it wasn't wise to appear too overeager to butt into the government's affairs at this troubling time.

Prudence was wise. He'd learned that lesson early from Abraxas.

" _Some_ people find it interesting," Arcturus remarked, inspecting the gigantic ruby ring on his left hand. He was the only man standing in that hall who didn't look worried—he almost seemed bored by the proceedings. Malfoy hoped he had that degree of self-assurance when he was as old as Black. "Can't say I see it. These things always get blown out of proportion. It's the filth they let creep into government these days. All mudblood lovers or—worse."

Malfoy let out a soft 'ha!' He could hardly disagree—though the infiltrations, the rot that Arcturus was describing had started decades earlier. The changes that were needed at this stage in the game were—rather drastic.

A culling was in order.

"By the way, Lucius—" Arcturus broke abruptly into his revery. "I hope you didn't mind me setting Orion on the trail of your—er, little problem the other night."

Lucius started.

"I—" He found himself in the rare circumstance of being caught of guard. "I didn't—of course not, but it wasn't, strictly speaking—"

"—I never like to presume on another man's private home, but—" Arcturus continued—tone casually, but voice just low enough that they would not be overheard. "Well, Orion _is_ the soul of discretion. I thought he could be of use to you in—ferreting them out. But I understand how such a gesture could be, ah… _interpreted_."

Malfoy's eyes narrowed. As an insult to his family's security—that was what Black meant. To admit he was insulted would be the cede that the thought had even crossed his mind.

He had no intention of doing that.

"I beg you not think on it anymore, sir, if this has been giving you—pause," Lucius said, flatly. "It all came to nothing, anyway. The _problem_ never—surfaced, as it were."

" _Oh_? Didn't it?" Arcturus lifted up his cane and studied the jeweled top of it, polished silver. "I somehow thought…differently."

The old man twisted the bright red jewel around his fingers. His gray eyes glittered with unmistakeable shrewdness.

Lucius considered the problem from several angles. He sensed a flat denial would be a mistake—perhaps Arcturus knew something. But he also had no interest in admitting that the two intruders into his family's home—and a party that was host to his wife's entire extended family—had both managed to slip through his grasp.

In truth, that 'little problem' of the other night had been the real reason he was so eager to run his father's errand.

It was all becoming clearer—and murkier at the same time. After he'd left Rowle, he'd gone up to the sixth floor, where his trusted contact at the Floo department had confirmed what he already suspected—the imposter Svensson had not left his house using one of the fires. None of his father's protections had been breached.

A man had managed to infiltrate Lucius's private home—the place where his wife slept—and get out again with no consequences. That couldn't stand.

Something was alluding him—just out of reach.

The identity of the second man.

A door that remained frustratingly closed to him.

"You must understand— _I_ abhor gossip-mongers above all, young Malfoy—never traffic in the stuff myself," Arcturus drawled, quietly. "But I _think_ the doorman mentioned something to your father-in-law about seeing that Klöcker man leave…alone."

Lucius made a private note to never allow Messing to watch the door again.

"Which does leave the question of the other one. _He_ disappeared sometime before the game. Klöcker even came out on the balcony looking for him. We met, you know. I'd guess it was around when he gave you his regrets—and he hadn't _yet_ found his—employer."

"My father is always telling me your are the cleverest man he knows, sir," Lucius said, through gritted teeth. "Nothing escapes your notice."

Arcturus smiled again—a patrician, vaguely condescending smile that made Lucius wish to reach for his wand. It reminded him unpleasantly of Cygnus—or Narcissa, in one of her rare willful moods.

Rodolphus might've been crude, but he was not entirely wrong in his assessment of the family that they had both married into.

"We Blacks are resourceful. In any case, I wouldn't worry on it—" Arcturus leaned back on his foot—affecting the appearance of not needing his cane. "—Orion will have gotten rid of him for you."

Lucius froze.

"I beg your pardon?"

The old man examined his fingers, languidly, while the hall of people around them buzzed with low murmurs of discontent. His voice was no louder than any of theirs—but unlike the indistinct rabble surrounding them, Lucius didn't have to strain to hear Arcturus's words.

"Well—it stands to _reason_. Orion was the last one in the card game, and after some thought, I've decided— _he_ must've been disposing of your gatecrasher—handily, out of sight." He tilted his head, hard eyes glinting in the torchlight. "He's very discreet, as I said—and the Swede disappeared around that time, after all."

Lucius felt a sudden shock—a lurch, his equilibrium stirred. An image came back to him—Orion Black, entertaining the card room—after being sought out by his father to complete the table. Orion who had seemed so momentarily out of sorts—except he was the kind of man who always seemed, to Lucius, at least—as if he was not sure how he had gotten to the places he was. Perpetually out of place and out of sorts.

Lucius had thought little of it, then. But now—

 _Not outside help._ Inside _help._

"Did he—" He tried to keep his voice measured. "Did he _mention_ this to you?"

Arcturus scoffed.

"Certainly not. He wouldn't—Orion _never_ boasts. But I know. I told him to keep a sharp eye out—" Arcturus paused, with grim satisfaction. "—And he always does _exactly_ as I tell him. As you're to have your own son this summer, I'll tell you—it's a good rule of thumb to foster obedience early."

Lucius bowed, politely. A gong sounded from far away—a warning. Court would be in session again, in a few minutes. '

 _Why_ would Orion Black have—

The witches and wizards of the tribunal began shuffling in the direction of the door—a crush of wizards pushing up against them. The two men remained in place.

"I'll be sure to take your advice, sir."

"See that you do—a willful son is the last thing you want." He checked his watch, idly, then added, with an airy shrug. "He's to meet me for lunch in an hour. Would you care to join us? We can clear the whole matter up, if you'd like."

"That won't be necessary, sir," Malfoy said, quickly. The sea of people was pressing against them, now. "I, too—understand the value of discretion."

Arcturus smiled—this time he bared his teeth. He'd known young Malfoy would never take him up on such an offer.

To admit that he didn't know what had gone on in his own house—that someone else had had to remove an unwanted visitor for him, right under his nose—would be too much to bear. His pride couldn't withstand such an insult.

"Think nothing of it. You know how it is—family party, and all that." He tipped his hat, courteously. "We Blacks look after our own."

It was like the tumbler of a lock slipping into place—a key turned, a door opened.

 _"_ _I'll go see if Alice knows—he's with her husband now, in the canteen."_

Arcturus's words rang in his ears long after he had disappeared into the sea of the receding crowd. They were with him as he mounted the stone steps, when he reached the lift—

 _"_ _May Frank have better luck than you did."_

The second man—the one who'd come with Longbottom and gotten away was a pureblood, not an Auror, not affiliated with the Ministry—probably sent by Dumbledore, a rogue operative—a man who could slip amongst them, catch them unawares, could blend in—given who it was that had tipped him off in the first place, it should have been obvious, and yet he had ruled out the possibility without even realizing he'd done so, perhaps because it seemed _so_ absurd—

 _Blacks always look out for their own._

It was something his wife said often—a bit of homegrown family wisdom. She was proud of her family, like all good witches—she believed it. Her loyalty was the thing he loved about Narcissa the most, and it was a quality she claimed came entirely from her family.

As to how far that loyalty _extended_ —

"That _is_ the question," he murmured, softly.

He would have to find out.

* * *

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	16. Chapter 16

_"_ _There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut; also a heavy locket none of them could open, a number of ancient seals and, in a dusty box, an Order of Merlin, First Class, that had been awarded to Sirius's grandfather for "Services to the Ministry."_

 _'_ _It means he gave them a load of gold,' said Sirius, contemptuously, throwing the medal into the rubbish sack._

 ** _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 16**

* * *

Orion stared into the depths of the Fountain of Magical Brethren while the whole Ministry—the whole _world_ —seemed to pass by.

He sat at the water's edge, his eyes focused on the coins scattered at the bottom, beneath the murky water and the feet of the house-elf, with its sycophantic, simpering smile. Every breath—slow and labored—took effort. It was worse today than it had been all week. This rare moment of anonymity was a welcome respite—no one noticed him committing the cardinal Black sin of weakness.

Or perhaps they noticed but simply didn't care.

Either way, he could lean against the marble here, out of sight and notice. And it gave him time to think while he waited—think on his latest failure.

Regulus was nothing more than a stripling—slight and unassuming, timid and polite—and yet when faced with the prospect of speaking to this eighteen-year-old _boy_ —Orion had lost his nerve. He had stood above the bed for five minutes, had watched the shallow rise and fall of his younger son's chest as he slept—and done nothing. If Regulus had seemed to be resting peacefully, he might've had an excuse for not stirring him—but the muttering, the beads of sweat on his forehead—were all signs he was caught in the throws of a nightmare.

To wake him up might've been a blessing.

 _From one nightmare to another,_ Mr. Black thought. _Dreaming to waking._

And so, he had done what he always did—he'd walked away.

 _Except I can't_ forget _it, now._

" _Orion_ …?" He started at the voice—polite and unassuming in his ear. "I _thought_ it was you."

He turned his head from the water—from the grimy knut at the bottom of the well he'd been gazing upon—and found himself looking into a face vaguely familiar to him. Neatly trimmed mustache, graying hair, sharp eyes—it took him only a moment to place the man.

As soon as recognition sunk in he stood up and held out a hand. He felt a jab of pain, but resisted the natural urge to grasp his chest.

"Crouch." Mr. Black always made a point of not returning a familiarity he didn't feel—he would not give the other man the satisfaction calling him 'Barty' would bring. "This is a surprise. I'd have thought you be in court at this hour."

"It was just adjourned." A firm shake—and quick release. "Meeting your father for lunch, I take it?"

Orion frowned. Crouch had asked the question in that annoying tone that spoke to his seniority at the Ministry—he almost certainly knew the answer. One couldn't do anything here without it being remarked upon.

These Ministry meddlers set his teeth on edge.

"Yes."

"Well…" Crouch glanced over at the clock on the wall. "He should be out shortly. He was right behind me."

"Caught up in conversation, I'm sure," Orion replied, vaguely. "Socializing and the like."

He waited for Crouch to make a few more pleasant remarks, perhaps an inquiry about his wife, and then the requisite polite excuse to leave him—but it didn't come. Instead Barty stared at him with an interest that Orion found, quite frankly, _distasteful_.

"It's a funny thing, running into you," he said, in a bland voice. "I don't think I have in—many years."

Crouch's eyes gleamed, curiously.

"It's not a coincidence. I was looking for you. Or—" He qualified himself. "—I was hoping I'd catch you, rather."

Orion blinked.

"You were?"

Orion noticed Crouch seemed to be holding back a smile—and an ominous feeling of dread crept over him.

"Yes. You see, I was very curious—" His mustache was clipped short, and so it did not hide his infernal smirk. Orion felt a stab of irritation. "—To hear that your family has relented at last. I didn't quite believe it, so I thought I'd—confirm."

"Relented in what respect?"

"Didn't you once tell me that the Black family didn't consider working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to be a suitable career?"

Orion schooled his expression to hide his surprise. _Had_ he said that? There was no such formal rule in their family, though anything above a senior post in any Ministry department was frowned upon as being frightfully _déclassé_. It sounded like the kind of made-up detail he'd have said at a social engagement when he was annoyed at Barty Crouch blathering to his mother about his ambitions to reform the department.

"And—? Why would you think that's changed?" Orion asked, in his blandest, most anodyne voice.

Crouch's smile widened.

"Well, considering I just saw your son being interviewed by Alastor Moody for a position in the Auror Department…"

Orion's face froze in a expression of such obvious shocked displeasure that it made the automatic denial—"you must be mistaken, my son is in France"—seem utterly pointless.

Crouch read the look before he could hide it again.

"You didn't know?" Orion narrowed his eyes while the other man shook his head. "I _did_ wonder. He seemed very eager not to have it known he was here, when I mentioned you."

 _Which was the easiest way to draw attention to himself,_ Orion thought, furiously. _That_ boy _—_

"I hope my son didn't say anything _insolent_ to you, sir," he said, dryly. "But given who it is we're speaking of—" His eyes rolled heavenward as he folded his arms behind his back in resignation. "—I find it difficult to imagine otherwise."

"Think nothing of it. I found him quite—amusing, in his way." Crouch laughed to himself. "He has more personality than mine, I'll say that for him. Not that the bar is very high there."

At this mention of his son, Crouch twisted his head reflexively, as if he was trying to shake off a troublesome gnat. Orion had almost forgotten he had one—a year or two younger than Regulus.

"I took the liberty of having his file pulled from the archives," Crouch continued, voice even—to Orion's displeasure, he actually pulled out the folder. "Very impressive—and interesting."

Orion eyed the bundle of parchment in Crouch's hand with trepidation. He'd opened it and was perusing it right in front of him, almost like a taunt.

"I can only imagine."

Mouth fixed in a grim line, Mr. Crouch snapped the folder shut again.

"I should tell you—if he's _serious_ about this business of becoming an Auror, he will have to explain why he pulled himself out of consideration for it a year ago, when he first applied." Orion gave him a shrewd look. "It's frowned upon—they think of it as wasting the government's time when someone gets that far in the process and doesn't give any explanation for why they've pulled out."

Orion nodded, absently—tucking this new snippet from the three year gap away, to be considered before he next saw the boy.

"Thank you for bringing this to my—attention, Crouch," he said, coolly.

"Don't mention it."

It was at that moment that the sound of a throat being cleared cut through the air between them.

Both men turned.

" _There_ you are, Orion." Arcturus Black slowly ambled over ivory can in hand, the green ribbon of his Order of Merlin (First Class) swung off of the watch chain dangling from his breast pocket. "Hiding yourself away in the corner, as usual."

Orion's hear sank. He could see exactly the sort of mood his father was in. The hearings had obviously not been to his liking, and he was going to be vexed for the rest of the day.

"Good afternoon, Father."

Arcturus ignored his son's greeting in favor of snapping his head in the direction of the Head of Department and addressing him, quite haughtily—not bothering to hide his sneer—

"Crouch. Didn't expect to see _you_ with my son. What are you discussing?" His sharp eyes narrowed. "You seem positively _engrossed_. Couldn't be about state affairs, of course. Orion has no interest in 'em."

He let out a cold laugh. It was the sort of comment that would have made him blush—if he were thirty years younger.

"It's not _no_ interest, Father," he cut in, wearily. "It's—just not professional."

"How could it be?" His father rapped his cane against the floor. "It's not as though you've ever taken the trouble to _involve_ yourself, have you?"

Orion pursed his lips but fell silent. He knew it was only Crouch's presence that prevented his father from falling back on the old criticism—that he was the least ambitious Slytherin Arcturus had ever met.

Barty spared him the trouble of a reply to this pointed question by clearing his throat.

"I was just telling Orion how surprised I was to see—you in court," Crouch lied, smoothly. "I hope your health is improving and to see more of you."

Orion had little time to wonder at his old classmate's white lie. Arcturus's smile, already cold, dropped completely.

"My health is _always_ excellent, thank you."

Barty Crouch, more amused than offended by this curtness, took one last look at the pair of them, then bowed ironically and took his leave. Arcturus watched him disappear into the sea of Ministry employees with displeasure.

"He's gotten too much influence," he murmured, when Crouch was out of sight. "Running circles around everyone in the hearings. It's dangerous."

"Shall we discuss this over lunch?" Orion asked, with a slight sigh. "It seems ill-advised to do so here."

His father had an excellent ear for sarcasm, but as Orion was so good at masking it—and so rarely employed it around his father—here it escaped him.

"What were you _really_ talking about with Crouch?"

Orion took the measured pause his family expected from him before answering.

"He was….alerting me to a matter of national security," his son replied, finally.

" _National security_?" Arcturus repeated, doubtfully. "What in the devil has that to do with you?"

"Some minor personnel kerfuffle in his office," Orion answered, smoothly. "Trivial, but—of interest."

Arcturus narrowed his eyes, searching his son's face for the lie. Orion kept his expression light, and his father, unable to catch him out and unwilling to accuse him of deceit directly, merely let out a dismissive noise.

"To you…but not _me_?" He leveled him with a suspicious, penetrating look.

"I wouldn't think so, sir," Orion said, unaffected. "Unless you take notice of the finer details of _Auror recruitment_."

The suggestion did the trick—Arcturus seemed insulted by the very idea that he would stoop to take interest in such a trivial matter. The old man huffed and told Orion to stop harping on the subject of Crouch, which he found tedious.

"Shall we, then?" Arcturus's son asked, politely nodding towards the fireplaces.

His father made a indistinct 'hn' in the back of his throat and turned his head around—left, then right. It reminded Orion of an oversized bird of prey.

"Don't you want to wait and see if your sister makes an appearance?"

Orion attempted to hide his involuntary smile behind a fit of coughing. Lucretia had had an open invitation to this weekly luncheon for as long as his father had insisted upon it, and it was a long-standing joke in the family that she had made every possible excuse to her elderly father to get out of going for the past fifteen years.

Arcturus, not a fool where 'his headstrong girl' was concerned, and perfectly aware of her insubordination—couldn't bring himself to acknowledge it outright. Perhaps his pride couldn't abide a daughter so ill-disposed to her own father that she would lie through her teeth rather than spend one extra hour a week with him.

"I wouldn't count on it. Anyway, I've seen enough of her today, actually." He fell in step next to his father as they walked towards the fireplace at the far end of the hall where they would Floo to luncheon at Arcturus's club. "She came to the house this morning to call on Walburga."

"Plotting together, I presume?" Arcturus sniffed. " _Women._ You shouldn't let those two alone. They're a pair of veritable schemers, when they get a mind for it."

"What would you suggest I do, bar my wife from socializing?" Orion asked, dryly. "I don't have the energy to entertain her at all hours of day myself."

"Don't be surprised when it comes out she's been plotting."

"Well, as long as it's not against _me_ —"

"Don't be a fool, Orion. _Any_ plot a man's wife cooks up he's not party to is against _him_."

They had almost read the Floo point when he held up his withered hand—Orion stopped.

"What is it?"

"There's something I have to— _ah_." Arcturus turned his head around, more buzzard-like than ever. " _Here_ he is."

Orion turned to see the object of his irascible father's ire, and found a harried young wizard hurrying towards them. He was pale beneath his spots, and the way he twisted his hands around his satchel was suggestive of an excess of nerves.

He was not his own master, of _that_ Orion was certain.

"About time, boy! You were supposed to be here—" Arcturus pulled out his watch. "—At _least_ five minutes ago."

"Yes—yes, Mr. Black, of course—!" He reached them, holding out a sealed letter in one trembling fist. "I'm sorry, I was—"

Arcturus snatched the parchment out of his hand—startled, the lad jumped and fell silent.

"Spare me your excuses. Here—" The Black patriarch produced a sack of gold from the interior of his cloak and dropped it into the young man's outstretched hands. The boy was so surprised by the action it nearly slipped to the floor. "—The gold. Tell Burke to wait to deposit it until I've given him further instruction myself, in person. I would hate for something to be—" His lip curled. "— _Lost in translation_."

The colored. Arcturus savored the embarrassment like a small glass of port, then turned to his son.

"This is Burke's new apprentice, Orion." The younger Black frowned. "Fresh from legal studies abroad in—Wittenberg, wasn't it?"

The apprentice—young man, really, though his unfortunate face pustules made him look younger than he was—nodded.

"Only been with Burke for a month." Arcturus tapped his cane on the floor. "What's your name?"

"Bletchley, Mr. Black. Martin—Bletchley."

Arcturus curled his lip at the surname but made no remark, though he shared a knowing look with his son. Seeing no reason to linger with the apprentice, Arcturus moved towards the fire—but his son hesitated.

"I'll—be along in a moment, Father," Orion called out—just before Arcturus disappeared in the flames. "I want to speak to him."

Bletchley, who had clearly been looking to make a hasty exit from the Ministry when his errand was complete, shuffled his feet and eyed Orion with uneasiness.

"You wouldn't have happened to be in the office yesterday, would you, Bletchley?"

"Yes, sir—I was."

" _All_ day?"

"Yes, sir. A-all day long."

Orion narrowed his eyes. He didn't have to give this stripling the look that it would have taken to make Sirius or Regulus squirm—he capitulated under far less.

"Then I'm sure you know why it is that I wanted to speak to you."

Bletchley picked at one of his spots—seeing disdain this gesture elicited on Mr. Black's face, he hastily lowered his hand and shoved it into his pocked.

"This wouldn't be about…" Bletchley lowered his voice. "… _Master_ Black, would it?"

Mr. Black raised one eyebrow and leveled the young man with a look that could have put a basilisk to shame.

"You're not as soft in the head as you look."

Bletchley's shoulders slumped—his eyes darted towards the fountain and both rows of fire places.

"Mr. Burke hasn't said anything to your—honorable father, sir, if that's what you wanted to—"

"— _That_ is not my concern." He smiled, thinly. "You needn't look so frightened. I only want to speak. It's…to your advantage, believe me."

* * *

It was well past one when Martin arrived back at the office.

"Well…how did it go?"

He started at the sound of his employer's soft but clear voice. Mr. Burke had not looked up from the expense books—it was only Bletchley's light step that had alerted him to his apprentice's return.

"I'm not sure."

Burke's _pince-nez_ glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose.

"Not as planned?"

Martin said nothing in reply—a carefully worded question deserved the same in turn, and he couldn't think of anything clever at the moment. He pulled the large sack of money Arcturus Black had given him and weighed it with his hand. It was not quite as large as the one the old man's grandson had threatened to lob at Martin's head the day before, but it had been given to him with about as much goodwill.

"Mr. Black said he didn't wish for you to deposit this until you'd spoken." He sighed. "I don't think he trusted me to pass on a message more complicated than that."

He dropped the bag of gold onto his boss's desk.

"I'm not feeling very well, sir. I should like to take the rest of the day off."

Burke raised his eyes from the page.

"Do you have a lot to think about, Mr. Bletchley?"

"I don't know what—"

Burke closed the account book and looked up.

"Competing offers, perhaps?"

Martin stared him down—he was struck by his employer's amazing ability to communicate the question 'do you take me for a fool?' without any words.

"Offers, sir?"

" _Bribes._ " Bletchley's face went deathly pale. "Come now, Martin. You've been gone three hours. As you've never so much as gone to the lavatory without asking for leave, I know you did as I instructed you, and judging from your expression you were more successful than you bargained for." His smiled turned serpentine. "How does young Sirius hope to entice you to spy on me for him?"

"He didn't—it wasn't exactly—he doesn't want me to _spy_ on _you_ , persay."

The specifics of the deal were apparently of little interest—Burke waved them off. A technicality, he was sure.

"What was the offer?" he repeated, calmly. Bletchley could hardly believe it—he almost thought the old man seemed amused.

"He said he'd help me—find a new position," he admitted, stiffly. "He said he has connections."

"Ah." Burke steepled his fingers. "What about his father? I suppose _he_ offered you money. Orion is not a particularly imaginative man."

"How did you—"

"I sent you to pick up the gold for a reason, Bletchley."

Of course. He had known Orion Black would be there, at the Ministry—meeting his father for lunch, and he had wanted to see if Mr. Black knew about his son's visit.

"I find myself in a difficult position, Mr. Burke."

"How so?"

"Well—I've never had two men each offer to pay me to report the other one's dealings with my employer to them before."

"They want you to spy on one other, do they?" Burke considered this, thoughtfully. "Interesting. Which offer do you find more enticing?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

Mr. Burke waved his hand.

"Well—in any case. You'll have plenty of time to think it over."

"What?"

"I thought you wanted to the rest of the afternoon off? I grant it to you. Consider your options. Which you'll take up on his generous offer—you could even do both, if you were feeling ambitious." He turned back to his books. "Though—I _would_ recommend finding out from the boy what sort of employment he has mind, before putting in your notice. I would hate to lose you to the likes of Mundungus Fletcher."

Burke opened his book again, licked the tip of his quill to wet it, and began the monotonous task of refiguring his numbers.

"Of course, sir," Bletchley said, faintly, turning to the door.

He resolved, as soon as he got out of the shop, to find the nearest pub.

He deserved a Christmas treat, after today.

Or at least a strong drink.

When Sirius was halfway across Regent's Park it began to rain again. Having settled his business with Martin Bletchley to the satisfaction of both parties—or at least with the assurance Bletch would consider his generous deal—he decided, instead of apparating back to his flat, to walk. He thought it would be useful for clearing his head.

It was when he reached the lake and the dreary London rain started up again that he realized what a mistake that was. The time spent stewing over his conversation with Moody only left him more and more agitated—by the time he made it back to his walk-up, soaking wet, Sirius was desperate for a fag and a drink, in whichever order they could be procured.

He was _not_ eager for conversation, and was ready to warn all parties involved of this fact.

"I'm home!" He flung the door open—it hit the back wall with a satisfying _thwap_. "And before you ask, Remus, no, I _don't_ want to talk about it."

Lupin stood in front of the kitchen door—the door which faced the entrance of the flat. At the sight of his friend he sprang forward, effectively blocking Sirius's path.

"You're here—thank _God_ —I didn't think you'd ever get back."

Sirius pulled off his sodden coat and waved his wand at it—the leather instantly dried out. He hung it on the hook by the front door, back facing the center of the room.

"Yes—well, I did. Barely," Sirius called over his shoulder. "If you _must_ know, I'll tell you—it was even _worse_ than I expected."

"Sirius, there's something—"

"Frank ambushed me." He fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket. "He stuck me in a room with Moody. And to top that off, I was _followed_ there by a legal clerk turned snoop."

"You _were?_ Why were—oh, never mind. It's not important—"

"—It felt pretty important in the moment, Moony!" Sirius snapped, moodily. "This is all Mundungus Fletcher's fault—"

"—Sirius—"

"—He can't keep his mouth shut for all the gold in—"

"Will you _shut up_ and _listen_ to me, please?"

Sirius's tongue caught mid-sentence. He stared at Remus—looking forbidding, as he so rarely did.

"You…have a visitor."

"A _what_?"

Remus tilted his head towards the other side of the room—just so.

The master of the house turned his head, very slowly, in the direction of the sofa—and the woman, perched primly at the far end of it, fox-fur wrap clutched snugly about her shoulders, handsome velvet-trimmed black flat cap covering her dark hair—who was watching this performance with undisguised amusement.

Sirius dropped his coat onto the floor in a heap.

"Oh, _fucking_ hell."

Lucretia's cheek dimpled.

"Hello, Sob." Mrs. Prewett briskly rose to her feet, her purse clutched in one manicured hand. "I was _wondering_ when you were going to turn up."

The sight of his aunt unleashed in Sirius a string of equally colorful—and to her, obviously humorous—epithets.

"Tsk. Is that any _way_ to greet your favorite aunt?"

Another string of even more violent curses followed the first.

"Remus. Why—" Sirius rounded on Lupin. "—why in hell would you let _her_ in?"

"I didn't," said Remus, helplessly. Lucretia began crossing the room towards them, slowly—her smile not dimming in the wake of her nephew's black scowl. "She let _herself_ in."

"Now, now, Sob—don't be cross with your chum." She fumbled in her clutch for a cigarette. "You know me. I managed to slip in when he was getting rid of the other one—the fat, dim boy."

Sirius's head darted back towards his friend.

"Peter was here?"

"He came by the flat looking for you." Remus lifted his shoulders and sighed. "I had to get rid of him somehow, so I said I'd take him out for lunch—and we left together. We walked half a mile before I pretended I'd forgotten something and doubled back, which is how I found…"

He gestured at the tall woman, currently studying Sirius's television.

"I like your friend _very_ much, Sob." She pulled at the antenna of the television idly. "He's been good company while I wait for you. Even if I couldn't get him to leave his— _guard-post_ at the door over there, and join me on the sofa."

Lucretia's eyes narrowed slightly on the door to the kitchen, but her smile didn't drop.

"I—I tried to play it off like you weren't coming back for hours, but _somehow_ she didn't believe me." His mouth quirked up. "Why does she keep calling you 'Sob'?"

"It's his nickname," Lucretia supplied, over the protests of her irate nephew. "A play on his initials, you know. We're _very_ fond of nicknames in our family. And when he was a little boy he used to always give the most fantastical explanations for his naughtiness— _I_ called them 'Sob stories'!"

Sirius glowered at her as he picked up his coat from the floor.

"You're the _only one_ who's ever used that name," he muttered, darkly, before turning back to Remus. "Where is Peter now?"

"Probably waiting for me at Tercelli's—I have to leave in a minute. Slight problem, though." He turned out his pockets. "No money."

Sirius swore, then pulled a crumpled ten-pound note out of his own pocket and held it out to Lupin.

"It's _Tercelli's_ , Sirius."

"Well—why did you offer to take him to a posh restaurant?"

"I was trying to get him to _leave_."

Lucretia surprised them both by cracking open her clutch and extracting, in a neat silver money clip—a single crisp 50 pound note, which she delicately tucked in the breast pocket of Lupin's tweed jacket.

"Will _that_ do?" She fluttered her eyelashes. "Or are you in need of more?"

Remus stammered out a disbelieving thank you. Her nephew seemed more suspicious than grateful at this gesture—he snatched the note out of Remus's pocket to examine it, as if looking for forgery.

"What are you doing, carrying around Muggle money?"

"It's for when I meet a young man in need of a rescue."

She winked at Lupin—a young man usually good at keeping his composure. Remus was so caught off-guard he actually blushed.

"Has she been coming onto you?" Sirius demanded, hotly. "She does that, you know. _Indiscriminately._ "

His aunt tutted.

"Is this about Papa's party?" She laughed. "You have only yourself to blame for that, Sirius. If I had known _Herr_ Svensson was my nephew, I would _certainly_ have focused my attention elsewhere." She turned her attention back to Lupin. "Were _you_ Mr. Klöcker?"

"Who's 'Mr. Klöcker'?"

Sirius stepped between them and flung his arms out.

"No, he wasn't—and I'll thank you not to fling yourself at my mates." His look turned disapproving. "He's thirty years younger than you—not to mention the fact that you're _married_."

She stuck out her lip in imitation of the pout of a much younger woman.

"You're no fun at all, Sirius." Lucretia's eyes flashed, knowingly. "I see you've not only grown to _look_ like your father—you're almost as _uptight_."

It was a well-planned hit—calculated to sting. Remus had not thought Sirius could look more angry than he had at the realization his Aunt Lucretia had come for a visit—but the comparison to Orion had done the trick.

His face turned bright red, and he shoved the fifty-pound note back in Lupin's hand, stalked over to his favorite armchair and flung himself down. Lucretia, wearing the satisfied look of a woman who knows she's landed a blow, trailed after him and sat back down at the sofa across from Sirius. Her back was straight, and with her Victorian manners and well-bred air, she might've been sitting for tea with the queen.

"Alright—out with it." Sirius tapped his fingers against the armrest. "What do you want?"

"Two things. I wanted to get a look at you—see where you've been hiding these past three years."

He snorted and pulled his legs up onto the chair, then raised his arms—an expansive, sarcastic gesture.

"Well, let me know when you're satisfied, so I can chuck you out."

She studied him carefully. Lupin, who had been so eager to leave moments before, didn't know if it was safe to leave his friend alone with his aunt, so he hovered at the front door.

"You're very striking, Sirius." Lucretia grinned. "You really _have_ grown to look like Orion."

He snorted.

" _Don't_ compare me to that man, please."

"Hm. Your mother is, I think, on the whole, right about you." His ears visibly perked up. "Still—I'd just as well have a basis for comparison."

"Comparison with what?"

"Tell Regulus to come out, so I can see you together."

There was a long silence. Sirius slowly sat up in his chair.

" _What_ —did you just say?"

"You heard me perfectly well."

"I —think I need you to repeat yourself."

She crossed her arms, expression suddenly cold.

"Didn't I mention? That was the second reason I came to see you. I wanted to see my nephews together for the first time in three years." Mrs. Prewett rose from the sofa again, this time with more purpose. "So why don't you go fetch Regulus from the kitchen, or the bedroom or—wherever it is he's been hiding?"

Sirius stared at her.

"You needn't play stupid, Sobbie. No need for charades." She pointed mercilessly at Remus, still standing at the doorway, gaping like a fish. "I've been reliably informed by your chum that he's in the immediate vicinity."

Sirius bolted up from the chair.

"Shit, Remus—why would you _tell_ her that?"

The moment he saw Lupin wince Sirius realized his mistake.

"I didn't." Sirius buried his face in his hands. " _You_ did."

Lucretia twittered behind one delicately glove-shod hand. Her nephew glared at her.

"You _really_ couldn't stop yourself, could you, Lucretia?" he muttered. " _Couldn't_ leave well enough alone."

She tilted her head again.

"Your mama and papa are not very good at keeping secrets from me." She smiled cheekily at him. "I suppose in that respect the apple didn't fall far from the tree."

He let out a sigh, vaulted from the chair to the floor and crossed the room. Sirius kicked the kitchen door open roughly.

" _Oi_! Reg!"

There was a small pause, before—a faint, sleepy voice called out.

 _"_ _What is it?"_

"Come out here!"

Another pause.

"… _Why_?"

"Because we have an exalted visitor in our midst!"

 _"_ _Is it Kreacher?"_ Lucretia stifled a snort. " _Did he bring lunch?"_

"No, it is _not_ the damn house-elf—just— _get_ out here, will you?" Sirius called back, over Lucretia's laugher. "She's not going to _leave_ until you do."

There was the sound of light steps padding on wood, and the slight figure of Regulus appeared at the doorway.

At the sight of his aunt, Regulus stopped dead. Hair mussed, still wearing his striped pajamas, it was obvious he'd just woken up from a nap and his haste had been the product of the conviction that his mother had unexpectedly arrived early for dinner.

If his expression was anything to go by, Regulus thought he might still be dreaming.

"Say something, Reg." Sirius leaned against the wall. "It's rude to stare."

To the surprise of both brothers, Lucretia came to Regulus directly. His aunt planted two airy kisses on the cheeks of her bewildered younger nephew, in the continental style.

"How d'you do, Reggie? I see you're having a very restful holiday in Marseille." Lucretia pulled back—her eyes lingered on his pajama sleeves. " _So_ restful you haven't even dressed for the day, goodness me!"

Regulus shuffled from side-to-side, then let out a resigned sigh.

"Hello, Aunt Lucretia." He folded his arms behind his back, soberly. "I was just about to write you another letter."

"Were you? Your heart wasn't much in the last one." She pulled it out of her clutch. "Did you copy that description of the Riviera from a gazette?"

"An almanac," he said, deadpan. Sirius guffawed.

"Marvelous work, Reg." He looked over at the door, where Lupin was still staring at them all, in a daze. "What are _you_ still doing here? I thought you had an important lunch to get to."

"Sirius…are you going to be alright?"

Sirius waved his hand and pushed off the wall.

"What's are you worried about, _her_? Don't be. She's just a nosy old gossip, Moony—I'll get rid of her in short order." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "If you ignore her she gets bored and wanders off."

His aunt hummed loudly and cheerfully in return to his insinuation. Remus's eyes flitted from her back to his friend.

"I don't mean about that. I mean about— _today_." He frowned. "Your meeting."

Sirius's sarcastic smile—the front he'd been putting on—faltered. He felt the eyes of all three of his companions trained on him. He could tell Remus was restraining himself from speaking more clearly because Regulus and Lucretia were there—and it had the effect of making him feel even more exposed.

"Come around later and I'll tell you about it. Or whenever you want." Sirius stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm going to have _nothing_ but free time for the foreseeable future."

Lupin nodded, slowly. Remus was excellent at reading between the lines—better than Sirius would have wished in this moment. From what Moony knew of the mission to Malfoy Manor, it was not difficult to guess that Sirius would be suspended from future Order missions of the same kind.

"Just—go. Peter is waiting for you."

He hesitated—Sirius thought he had made a clean escape, except Remus's shoulders had gone rigid, the way they always did when he was on the precipice of decision.

"That's another thing." Lupin turned back. "Will you—talk to him? I can't keep making excuses for you. He's only going to keep coming 'round the flat, and it's—starting to be a problem."

"Pettigrew was here?" Regulus demanded, his voice quiet. "What did _he_ want?"

"Presumably he wants to see me." Sirius shrugged, coldly. "Believe it or not, I did have a _life_ before you moved in here, Regulus. I have _friends_. Occasionally people _not_ related by blood would pop in for visits."

Regulus said nothing—but his eyes glittered strangely, and his expression became closed-off. There was an awkward moment, interrupted only by—

"Pettigrew…that's the fat boy, correct?" Lucretia tapped her chin. "I must tell you, I didn't like the look of him _at all_."

Sirius let out a sound suspiciously similar to a raspberry.

"What does your opinion count for?"

"He seemed sly," she continued, off-handedly. "I'd watch out for that one, Sob."

Sirius threw up his arms in disgust.

"Oh, a member of this family giving unsolicited advice—how original."

Lucretia sashayed back over to the sofa and sat down.

"You should listen to me," his aunt sniffed. "I have a nose for these things."

"Yeah, right, like you have a nose for _brandy_ —"

"—Father was here."

Sirius's head snapped around. Regulus had wandered over to the dining room table—where an enormous red book lay, letter perched atop it. He recognized it at once—it was the accounts ledger his father always kept in his study.

An ominous sight.

Sirius looked around at his friend, perturbed. Remus did not move, and his face took on that odd, closed expression he sometimes got. Sirius never knew what he was thinking, then.

"He was?" Lupin nodded. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"There's not much to say," Lupin replied, mildly. "Your father only stayed—a few minutes."

Remus looked to Regulus.

"Didn't you hear him? He left through the fire in your room, I though he would've woken you up."

Regulus's brow furrowed. His brother crossed back over to the table and picked up the letter—addressed with only a single initial 'S'—and tapped it, still unopened, against the wood. Sirius let out a low whistle.

"That's two near misses in one day. My luck must be changing." He looked around at Lupin again, this time his trademark smile plastered back on—a little strained. "So, what did _he_ want?"

"To give you that. And speak to you, I think. He didn't…really say."

Sirius waited for his friend to volunteer some speculation on why Orion had come in the middle of the day to pay a call—when up until now he had never done so. The speculation didn't come.

Nothing came. Remus's face remained a frustrating blank.

 _What, is he taking a leaf out of Reg's book?_

"Oh." Sirius blinked. "Well—sorry about that. I hope he didn't—"

"—He didn't," Remus cut him off, briskly. He pulled on his coat, suddenly very eager to get out the door. "It was nothing, really. I should go. Peter's waiting." Lupin opened the front door and turned around. "Talk later? Let's say—ten?"

Sirius scratched the side of his face.

"…Yeah, sure. Of course."

He bid the brothers goodbye—and, after telling Lucretia in somber tones how pleased he was to have met her—shut the door behind him, leaving the Blacks to their fate.

The room hung in stasis for a moment.

"What an…interesting young man," Lucretia remarked, to break the silence. "I assume he's one of the _disreputable_ Gryffindors?"

Sirius rolled his eyes.

" _He's_ not the one your mama hates most of all, though." Her eyes glinted. "The one you lived with after you ran off."

Sirius flung himself back down on the armchair. His legs dangled over the side.

"What's it going to take to get _rid_ of you?"

"A cup of tea would be a good start." She leaned back on the cushions and made herself comfortable. "Perhaps a pot for the three of us. And we can have a little chat—and when I've sufficiently amused myself, I'll be on my merry way."

"Can I get that in writing?"

He glanced over at his brother, who watched Lucretia impassively. Like Remus, it was impossible to say what he was thinking.

"I'll make the tea." Regulus sighed. "I'll see if we have something to eat. And I suppose I should get dressed."

"Good gracious, Regulus—I don't mind your pajamas."

He smiled, faintly.

"Mother will be here soon. _She_ minds."

Regulus disappeared through the kitchen door again. Sirius sank deeper into the cushions of his sofa chair.

His aunt pulled out her cigarette holder and lit the tip of her cig.

"You can't smoke that in here," Sirius said, crossly, to the ceiling. "You'll have—to go out on the balcony."

His aunt smirked and took a long drag.

"I see she's got you trained up already," she remarked, with a grin.

Sirius sat up, suddenly furious. He scowled and snatched one of from the open box that she held out to him.

He lit his own fag, and the two smoked in silence for a minute—sharing the camaraderie that only two avowed rebels could know. Sirius felt his nerves calm with each puff—though his neck still prickled from the uncomfortable sensation of being watched by Lucretia.

"So— _this_ is where you've been holed up." She glanced around the room—the room she most certainly had studied to her heart's content when she'd been waiting for him. Lucretia's eyes lingered on the television. "I must tell you, Sirius—I was surprised when I heard you'd moved back to London. Very daring of you."

"It's a large city."

"And you—just across the park."

"Your brother and sister-in-law don't own this section of town. The entirety of central London is not a Black estate." He tapped the cigarette against the side of the sofa. "How _did_ you know where I live?"

"I have my sources."

He gave her a sideways look.

"Did you follow Orion here?"

"Of course not. I couldn't have done such a thing, even if I wanted to. He's _very_ discreet." She raised an eyebrow. "He offered to bring me by today, though. To show me around your flat. That was how I knew I _must_ come on my own. Orion would only make such an offer—"

"—If he was trying to hide something from you." He groaned in annoyance and sank even deeper into the sofa chair. "Perfect. Why does he always fall for that? He's only known you his entire life."

She shrugged and smiled, slyly.

"Your mama may have also had a little slip of the tongue—a mention of 'her children' where she should have been only talking about you."

"She talks about me?"

Lucretia shook her head and wrinkled her nose in his direction.

"You awful boy—you _know_ she does." She let out a puff of smoke. It furled around her head like a snake, twisting and turning. "It's been coming on slowly, but—between those two and these letters of your brother's—well, I had an idea there was more to this reunion than mere…chance."

Sirius leaned against the arm of his chair, cigarette hanging from his lips. Outside a dismal gray sky reflected his feelings perfectly.

"What a snoop you are, Lucretia," Sirius said, looking back at his aunt. "How nosy can one woman get?"

She laughed.

"Rich words from our imposter Mr. Svensson." Her eyes twinkled merrily. "That was very naughty of you, Sob—to come into Papa's party in disguise, and creep among us all, eavesdropping, pretending you couldn't understand. Very uncouth, I say. Don't think I didn't see you _listening in_ on your mama and I."

He sat up and turned on her, indignantly.

"You think I _wanted_ to hear all that? It was— _disgusting_."

"What are you—" Her mouth froze in a delicate 'o'—then broke into a wide grin. "Oh, that's right! We were talking about you, weren't we?" Lucretia snorted. "And all the trouble it took bringing you into the world."

He made a retching sound and pulled his legs up underneath him on the chair. Sirius shot her a look over his knees.

"…That wasn't—actually true, was it?"

"Which part?"

He teetered on the edge of saying it aloud.

"Every night for— _four years_?"

As soon as the words came out he regretted them. She was delighted.

"I assure you, it is. At least according to your mother." Her grin turned wicked. "I know it sounds extreme, but it's quite possible, Sirius."

"I know it's _possible_ , but—"

"—You should ask your papa, if you're looking for advice on _technique_ —"

"—I don't need any assistance in that area, thank you!"

She tried to conceal her smile behind a hand and failed.

"Oh?" Lucretia's cheek dimpled. "I suppose you _have_ grown handsome. Do you have lots of Muggle girlfriends, Sirius?"

He laughed and leaned back in his chair.

"That's what _she's_ worried about." His mouth flattened to a thin line. "It's not any more your business than it is hers. Real men don't kiss and tell."

"Nor do they blush at talk of their conquests," his aunt pointed out, archly.

She conjured an ashtray out of thin air and tapped the end of her cigarette holder on the edge. Sirius felt his already flushed face redden.

Regulus reentered the room—now dressed in black robes and carrying a pot of tea and a tray with a few hard biscuits he'd scraped jam onto.

"Ah—Regulus. Lovely." When he set them down, she reached over and took a nibble from one. "…Forgive me, my dear boy, but I don't think you have the makings of a chef."

"Sorry if it's not very….good."

He sat down next to her on the couch. The three stared at each other, each waiting for someone to speak first.

It was Lucretia who broke the silence.

"Now—why don't you both tell me how all this came to be?"

The boys exchanged a look—then Sirius stretched his arms over his head and yawned.

"As _you_ were the one who started it," he told his brother, languidly. " _You_ can tell her."

"I'm not telling anyone else anything." Regulus fiddled with his hands in his laps. "It's bad enough Mother and Father know as much as they do."

"I couldn't agree more—though I think our reasoning differs somewhat." He looked over at Lucretia, who was stopped blowing trails of smoke above her head. Her taut, slightly horsey face was unusually tense. "Can't you guess?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, disconcerted.

"I thought you spoke to Orion, the night of the party. Didn't he tell you anything?"

"Not very much, but—wait a moment." She jabbed her cigarette in Sirius's direction. "Sirius—were _you_ the one who tattled on me to your father?" She crossed her arms. "Were you by chance spying on Papa and I when we were out on the balcony?"

"I might've been hiding in the bushes, yeah."

She let out a sigh of annoyance—but not of real anger.

"When will you grow out of that nasty habit you have of listening at keyholes?"

"Perhaps when I stop learning interesting things about my relatives by doing so."

He gestured at Regulus, who was sitting, back ramrod straight, his cup of tea untouched.

"It's— _that_ , is it?" She sucked in another puff. "I was…afraid that's what it was."

Eyes trained on her younger nephew, she made a move to grab one of his awful-looking biscuits.

"I thought something like this might happen." She shook her head and scraped the jam back onto the plate. "I even told your mother I didn't like you getting mixed up with Lucius Malfoy's crowd."

"Did you bother to tell her _why_ , Lucretia?"

She frowned and fell silent. Her older nephew sat up.

"This family! The way you talk about it, you'd think Regulus had joined an—unruly gentlemens' club, or something. They're _Death Eaters_ , for God's sake. They're murderers!" He turned to his brother, roughly. "Show her your arm, Reg."

Regulus protectively grabbed his forearm with his good arm, as if he thought Sirius would cross the room and pull up his sleeve.

" _They_ didn't do that."

"How bad is this, truly?"

Sirius stood up and crossed to the dining room table, where his father's gigantic book still lay.

"Very—" He ran his hand over the spine. "The only thing that would make it worse is if Dumbledore wasn't involved."

" _He's_ mixed up in this?" Lucretia squawked. "With _your_ mother and father?"

"Of course. Why else would I be?" He sniffed. "He's monitoring the situation from afar. I'm his liaison to her royal highness and the prince consort."

"Are you? How droll." She clucked her tongue. "How good of a job are you doing?"

"Let's just say, the sooner he puts me on layaway, the better."

Sirius flipped the book to a random page, pretending to be interested in it. Behind him, he heard Lucretia tapping her cigarette holder against the ashtray.

"Dumbledore may have miscalculated there. I can't imagine they appreciate _you_ acting as his mouthpiece, Sob."

"Oh, they're enjoying themselves, believe me." He gave her a piercing look. "He's dangled me out in front of them like fresh meat."

Lucretia extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray.

"Is it really only Dumbledore that's the reason for you getting drawn back into the—bosom of your family, so to speak?" She took a sip of tea. "I was under the impression your father had something to do with that." She fluttered her eyelashes, innocently. "That's, at least—what your mama seems to think."

Sirius froze, bent over the book. Regulus—watching the exchange carefully—narrowed his eyes in his brother's direction.

"What has she told you?"

"Nothing specific."

"Is that because she doesn't _know_ , or she doesn't want _you_ to know?"

Lucretia smiled, mysteriously. Sirius, for all his myriad of faults—well, he did know the right questions to ask.

"What does that letter say?" Sirius spun on his heel. "Your father didn't ask you, by chance—to balance the monthly accounts, did he?"

Sirius's hand crumbled the parchment. He had not bothered to check if it had been resealed—but it hardly mattered. Whether she'd opened it before he arrived or simply guessed it's contents, his aunt was right, and, worst of all—she knew it.

"Forgive me my ignorance of your affairs, but that sounds _less_ like a mission from Albus Dumbledore—" She gave Regulus a sly look. "—And _more_ like something my brother would have his wayward heir do as punishment for wandering from the nest for three years."

Sirius shoved the letter in his pocket and walked to the kitchen door.

"I'm going to check and see if there's been any post." He tossed the cigarette, still lit, into the ashtray. "Feel free to bugger off in the meantime."

Sirius stalked out the door and shut it behind him with a slam.

"He is _so_ easy to tease." She laughed. "I've missed that."

Regulus rolled his eyes.

"You aren't the only one." Lucretia smiled at him, wanly. "Why did you really come, Aunt Lucretia?"

"I've told you."

"I don't believe you." He crossed his arms and gave her a gently reproachful look—if Sirius's expression was like his mother's, Reggie was all Orion. "I think you'd figured out most everything before you got here."

Oh—he _was_ a clever boy. Her eyes crinkled.

"If you _must_ know, I thought your mama and papa might have their hands full, with Sirius Orion—and that _you_ could use a check in."

Regulus's mouth fell open—and he unexpectedly turned pink. Lucretia laughed at the sight—very gently.

"Your mama is right about him—he _is_ good at making himself a spectacle." She glanced over her tea cup. "I'd _say_ you should take a leaf out of his book, but there's only room for one spectacle in any set of siblings. You and your father lost your chances before they'd even begun."

He gave her a watery smile.

"You look ill." She drank another gulp of tea. "What's this about your arm?"

"Nothing."

"That 'nothing' appears to be soaking through your sleeve, my dear."

Regulus looked down and flushed. His robes may have been dark—no doubt he had selected them for that reason—but no fabric could conceal the blood seeping through silk.

"Mother will…see to redressing it when she arrives."

A heavy silence fell between them.

"I suppose you won't tell me how it happened." Lucretia sighed. "No—you're not your brother. You won't have it tricked out of you."

"It's really better you not know." Regulus leaned forward, brown eyes fixed on hers. "You shouldn't be here at all. It's dangerous."

Lucretia frowned.

"That's no way to talk—not when I've come specifically to cheer you up."

"Aunt Lucretia—"

"I've got an idea." Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let's have some fun with your brother, shall we?"

Regulus's eyes widened. He glanced at the door, then back at her. Lucretia leaned closer to him, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper.

"Your mother has a theory about him." She set her teacup down on the saucer with a clink. "She thinks he always has to do the _opposite_ of what she tells him. She's currently trying to use this little theory of hers to her advantage."

Her nephew gaped at her.

"Shall we _test_ this theory of hers?"

The sound of distempered stomping signaled that his elder brother was about to return to their midst.

"What—"

" _Just play along_."

The door flung open, and Sirius stalked back in the room.

"No post yet," he said, in a surly voice. "You're still here?"

"Expecting a letter, Sob?"

Sirius stopped mid-step.

"If I was…it wouldn't be any of _your_ business."

"I could have spared you the trouble." She blinked owlishly up at him. "That little French girl told your mother she had no intention of sending any letters today, so I wouldn't bother waiting for anything from _her_."

He looked at her for a long moment—several tart retorts on the tip of his tongue. Sirius, rare though it was, managed to bite back what he would have so loved to tell her to do.

"Well, aren't you clever? You seem to know _everything_." Sirius pointed at her. "What did she do to Colette Battancourt? Or—what is she _planning_ to do?"

Lucretia adjusted her velvet cap and tossed her head, airily.

"I don't know what you're speaking of."

"Yes, you do! You were at Grimmauld Place this morning—she called you there, I bet. You _know._ Don't hold out on me now."

"I wouldn't presume to understand any plans your mother may or may not have," she said, in a lofty voice. "And I wouldn't tell you if I did. She is my dearest friend. I would never betray her confidences."

"Ha! You know what I think?" Sirius stared suspiciously between his brother and aunt. " _I_ think she's up to something. _I_ think—"

He stopped himself, mid-gesticulation. Lucretia was gazing at him, her eyes slightly over-bright, like a harmless wren—but there was something unexpectedly shrewd about that look.

"Go on," she said, voice dangerously calm. "You were just telling us what _you think_."

He stepped back—like a man who realizes there's an adder in his path. He sank back into his arm chair.

"On second thought—I will spare you my thoughts. I don't trust you. I think she sent you here to spy on us—come and suss out what I know or suspect." He tapped his temples. "Well, I'm onto her game. I can out-fox the fox."

"Tell me, Sirius—in this metaphor—are you the _farmer_ —" She tilted her head. "—Or the _chicken_?"

He bit his lip and glowered at her.

"Your brother certainly has grown very paranoid these past three years, Regulus," she remarked, dryly.

Regulus didn't reply. He was watching them both—Lucretia more carefully than his brother.

"But as he is still quite charming—I will offer him a bit of advice from the heart." Lucretia stood up and readjusted her cap.

"It's in your best interest to stay away from that girl."

He laughed.

"I don't believe this. She really _did_ send you, didn't she?"

"Certainly not." Mrs. Prewett shoved her diamond cigarette holder into her clutch before snapping it shut. "I'm here of my own volition. I am sure your mother wouldn't appreciate me butting my nose in, frankly. She's always resented the implication she can't manage her own affairs."

"She made her views on _that_ subject very clear," Sirius said, coldly. "No need to send a proxy in ermine to hammer the message in."

Lucretia tried and failed to feign offense at his peculiar insult.

"I am speaking to you on the level, Sirius," Lucretia said, unusually grave. "Leave the girl be. She's respectable. You shouldn't trifle with a witch like that."

"Who's trifling?"

She gave him a warning look.

"This is friendly advice, Sob. You should be grateful to me." She walked over to him and gave him a chuck on the chin. "It's only for your benefit—and I didn't have to take the trouble."

Sirius jerked his head out of her grip.

"You can spare me 'no ulterior motives' bit. You're just like all the rest of them." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "This is _not_ just for my benefit."

"Perhaps not," she conceded. "Doesn't make my counsel any less sound."

"I know what I'm doing."

"…Do you?"

She looked over at her other nephew, whose face bore all the marks of slow dawning realization.

"All right." She lifted her hands in the air. "But Regulus will bear witness. You saw. I _tried_ to warn him."

Regulus—impassive as ever—stood up and walked over to her. She was pulling the fox fur around her shoulders. Lucretia winked at him.

"Well, Reggie—" Two careless kisses on each cheek. "Have I succeeded?"

"In what?"

She turned her head a fraction of an inch towards Sirius, who was eying the two of the with utmost suspicion.

" _Cheering you up_."

He smiled—a genuine smile, the first real one she'd seen from him—and then, to the surprise of his brother and aunt, actually let out a laugh.

"Yes." He kissed her on the cheek. "You have."

* * *

Whatever _it_ was—it was _in_ Sirius's flat.

That was the only conclusion he could draw from it, Peter thought, as he watched Remus from across the table, with its white linen cloth and tall wine glasses. Whatever they were hiding from him—it was inside the flat itself.

He'd suspected as much for days. His friends had told him about their strange inability to wriggle into knots in the wood that had once been easy to slip through. Of course, being rats, they couldn't understand _why_ it was that they couldn't get any further into the flat than the outer walls—but he was a wizard, and could identify the cause of their distress easily enough.

Magic. Protective magic, far stronger than anything Sirius had ever put around his flat before now. He'd never cared much about the place—was rarely there, and being in the middle of Muggle London, it was hardly a center of operations for the few wizards who even knew he lived there.

And yet, they—Sirius, James, Remus, maybe Lily, perhaps others—were hiding something in that flat— _in shifts._

"This is—really good, isn't it?" Peter asked, helping himself to a gulp of wine. Remus, in what must've been a fit of madness, had ordered them a bottle. "…Is something wrong, Moony?"

"What?" Remus had been in a daze through the whole starter course. "Oh—I'm sorry, Peter. Drifting off again?"

Peter nibbled on the end of a breadstick, shrugged and repeated the question, this time pointing out how distracted Remus seemed.

"It's nothing—out of the usual way. Just, you know—" He grimaced. "Full moon."

"That's not for another week, though."

Remus looked up from his own glass of chianti—untouched—and stared at Peter. For the first time that day—for the first time in many months, in fact—Wormtail had the impression his words had actually registered.

"You know it's not a once a month occurrence for me, don't you, Peter?"

It was a rarity, so he could recognize it instantly—anger. He'd angered him, the infinitely patient Remus Lupin. Peter pretended to be chastened and stuttered out an apology. It wasn't difficult. There was a time when he would have been genuinely embarrassed by such a slip—of course, _then_ it would have actually been an accident, not a deliberate jab meant to draw Remus out of himself, so that he might get something useful out of this lunch besides expensive bread and foul looks from their fellow diners, who clearly thought two underdressed chavs like them had no place in a restaurant as upscale as this.

How _stupid_ did they think he was?

But that was Remus—he was touchy, not like Sirius, true, for it was far more predictable what would set Moony off—but he had a moody streak, and an annoying habit of passive-aggressively laying on a 'woe-is-me' routine whenever the subject of his condition came up. It had lost its effect on Peter years before—and if it had ever worked on Sirius, he suspected it no longer did.

For James it was as palpable as ever—but then again, James had a soft heart.

In truth, it was hard for Peter to take it seriously—what Remus was had never stopped him from being decent at school, a prefect—and better liked by Sirius and James than _he_ was.

"You just seem like you have a lot…on your mind."

He chewed his lower lip. Vagueness was going to be key here—it was when you started asking specific questions, pointing out specific patterns—that was where the danger was.

"I'm not—I mean, more than usual. I guess I've been—" He stopped himself. "Peter—what do you think your mother would do if she found out about me?"

He stopped the chewing abruptly. He had not expected results so quickly—if that was what this was. Results.

"What do you—what about—"

"—You know, Peter. My…condition," Remus finished, wearily. "What would she say if she found out?"

"Oh." He blinked. This time the surprise _was_ genuine. "I dunno. Doesn't seem likely, does it? She doesn't ask a lot of questions."

Which was proving useful. The widowed Mrs. Pettigrew only wanted to know if he'd managed to find some way of 'making himself useful'—and that was a question he could answer with a full-throated 'yes.'

"Do you think she'd try to—stop us from being friends, if she knew?"

Where was _this_ coming from? Did Remus really care? His mum could barely keep his friends straight. She'd never quite gotten over the shock of him managing to get three.

"How could she? I'm of age and so are you. She couldn't very well stop us from seeing one another. That's—mad."

"I suppose that's true." He seemed uncomforted by the thought. "What about James' parents? Do you think _they'd_ have been angry if they knew?"

"Were they ever angry at him about anything?"

"I meant—" Remus lowered his voice. "—About what the three of you _did_ , Peter."

Peter fixed his face in an expression of puzzled bewilderment—all the while trying to keep his eyes from squinting in suspicion. This was the second time—James and Sirius had mentioned that at the Leaky Cauldron a few days earlier. An argument about getting registered, of all things. He'd thought it was strange at the time, but—two times in under a week was no coincidence.

What did that have to do with Sirius's _flat_?

The waiter came with their main courses. A plate of mussels and spaghetti Bolognese snapped Remus out of his strange mood, and he became—almost sociable, if distant. Without Sirius and James to fill in the gaps, it was still a comparatively stilted affair. He and Remus hardly could come up with things to say each other, these days. They never really had.

But—the nosh was good.

Remus's strange turn was something to think about, as he made his way back to Diagon Alley through the driving wind of a mid-December afternoon. He couldn't believe that Moony was actually worried about Mrs. Pettigrew forbidding them from seeing each other—as if Peter would let that happen, anyway. Remus's friendship was far too valuable to him. Who else would've taken the trouble to get him away from the flat with such an expensive meal?

It was in the flat, he repeated to himself, as he pulled his cheap overcoat around his shoulders and shivered. He crossed two streets to avoid a particularly persistent tramp he knew would try to bully him out of his last five quid note.

Even as a wizard he'd never been very good at standing up for himself.

There was no point in going back to Sirius's flat now—know, it would be too pushy. As far as that situation went—he might have to try a new strategy altogether.

 _They can't stay in there forever…_

He'd have to choose his moment carefully.

But, if nothing else—Peter Pettigrew was good at waiting.


	17. Chapter 17

_'_ _He was younger than me,' said Sirius, 'And a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.'_

-J.K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 17**

* * *

"This is so pointless," Sirius said, to the ceiling. "We're not going to find anything."

Regulus looked up from the cracked parchment he'd been pouring over to the sofa, where his brother lay, legs dangling off the side in a dramatically indolent pose.

"We can at least _try_."

Regulus, cross-legged on the aging shag carpet, tossed another letter onto his 'read' pile. Since the departure of their aunt, the brothers had been hard at work sorting through the piles of documents and old books that Orion had left them to peruse.

Or, as it was in Sirius's case, _avoiding_ work.

"He doesn't expect us to." Sirius flicked off the letter he'd let rest on his face for several minutes. "You know why he's doing this, don't you? Spite."

Regulus shuffled over a pile of shopping lists from the 1870s they'd unearthed. Nothing about an opal necklace _there_.

"Father doesn't do things out of spite," he remarked, idly. Sirius suppressed a snort.

"You're talking to the man currently being _blackmailed_ by him, so—agree to disagree."

In a fit of pique he kicked over an already toppling pile of extremely formal love letters their great-great-great aunt had received and apparently never answered. His brother glanced up, then, and with an impatient huff, waved his wand to right them once more.

"….He's not doing _that_ out of spite," Regulus said, quietly, squaring the edges of the stack.

Sirius looked up from the book he'd been half-inclined to use as a blanket, faintly surprised. His brother was buried in his own volume—whether Regulus was _that_ keen on the contents of the mouldering leather tome, or just trying to avoid eye contact was difficult to say.

"Then why, pray tell—" He reached over and pulled the edge of the book down. "— _Is_ he doing it?"

Regulus looked up into his face—his dark eyes frustratingly opaque.

"If you don't realize, there's no point in explaining."

Sirius made a disgruntled noise and pushed the book back at his brother.

"Last night you said something like that to me. Is speaking in riddles your thing now?" He flopped back down onto the sofa. "You're almost as cryptic as Dad."

Regulus didn't argue with him, instead letting the insult pass without comment—another move, Sirius thought, with disgust—that he'd pulled from their father's paltry bag of tricks.

"We're bound to find something in _one_ of these."

"No, we aren't." He propped his chin on one palm and surveyed the sitting room floor and his brother's impenetrable system of organization. "This is all an exercise in futility. It's like that bloke from the Greek myth who had to roll the boulder up the hill."

"Sisyphus." Sirius ignored him, instead rolling onto his side and scattering the papers surrounding him on the sofa—being far less methodical and tidy in his approach to 'research' than his brother, the slightest movement was liable to send every letter flying onto the floor and directly into Regulus's hard work.

"This is a new strategy, Reg. Shouting didn't work to his satisfaction, so now he's trying to _bore_ us into submission."

The younger brother tutted quietly as he pulled out an envelope curiously tucked into the slip cover of the oldest of the books—a letter fell out and directly into his lap. Frowning, the younger Black brother picked it up and and began to unfurl it.

"He's at _least_ going to expect you to tell him something interesting you learned," he murmured, absently, as he smoothed out the parchment—no, it was a kind of cheap stationery, not parchment at all. "To prove you're trying."

"So, I'll make something interesting up." Regulus's eyes froze on the paper. "I mean, you'll have to, too. It's not as if anyone in this family has ever _actually_ written something interesting. Offensive, maybe, but—"

"—Sirius, shut up."

A sharp rebuke, for Regulus—Sirius's babbling petered out at once. He tilted his head in the direction of the floor.

"What is it?"

Regulus held the letter out with trembling hands.

"I've—found something."

His brother sat up.

"Not—about the _opals_?" Sirius asked, incredulously.

He made a move to pluck the letter out of Regulus's hands, but the younger brother drew it back. His eyes skimmed the page, growing wider with each line.

"It's—what I thought. It's…a letter from _Phineas_."

Far from having the impact Regulus's tone suggested this revelation warranted, his elder brother looked crestfallen.

"Is _that_ all?"

"Not Phineas Nigellus." Reggie lowered the letter, looking grave. "His—son. Grandfather's uncle. You remember."

It took a moment for Regulus's words to register, and another for him to remember. A map of the family tree—one that looked precisely like the tapestry in the drawing room of their parents' house—had to be drawn from the depths of his memory, first. Fifteen years since he'd been put to the task of memorizing it, and Sirius had not yet dislodged the information from his mind.

He doubted he ever would.

"Phineas…the one who was disowned? The champion for the muggleborn?" He cocked an eyebrow. " _That_ Phineas?"

But Regulus was too busy reading, his frown growing more and more pronounced with every line, to answer this rhetorical line of questioning.

"This is—actually _very_ interesting."

"Interesting _how_?"

Sirius stood up and idly sauntered over to the bit of carpet where his brother sat, hunched over the page with posture that would have made their mother scowl. He was curious—though hardly eager to show that to his little brother. He had always had a marginal interest in the disowned members of the Black family, and despite his mother's wishes—or perhaps, because of them—had even managed as a child to acquire snippets of information, usually from his Uncle Alphard.

Like anything forbidden, it had a certain allure.

It was only when he joined their ranks that he lost his appetite for wondering at the fates of the lost Black sheep.

"This was—written _after_ he was disowned," Regulus said, quietly, and he handed it up to Sirius without protest. "They must've kept a correspondence. But I can't see how he's _right_."

"Right about _what_?"

Sirius plucked the letter out of his hand. It was a single page—and as Regulus had said, dated to long after the unfortunate young radical been blasted off the family tree. It took Sirius a moment to grasp what this lost great-great uncle was saying—as his brother had pointed out, it was clearly part of a longer correspondence, for previous conversations were referenced throughout.

"Well, now we at least know why he was disowned." He lifted his head and laughed, contemptuously. "He was barking mad. What a load of total rubbish!"

Regulus didn't return his smile.

"You don't think it's…possible?"

"What, that the family motto refers to _anything but_ blood purity?" Sirius slapped the letter against his palm. "I don't care how many historical studies this bloke did of the twelfth century and the origins of wizard ideologies after the Statue of Secrecy went into effect, there's _no_ way—" He scoffed, loudly. "—I mean, what _else_ is ' _Toujours Pur_ ' supposed to be about?"

He thrust the letter back into Regulus's hands. His brother stared down at it—smoothed the crinkled edges that had come from Sirius's rough handling.

"Purity of heart, I suppose."

Sirius laughed—a single, hard ' _ha_!'

"'Always pure of heart'—" He sneered and stalked back over to the sofa. "The only family motto we deserve _less_ than the one we have now."

Regulus frowned, expression thoughtful.

"I wonder— _could_ it be true?"

Sirius turned his head sharply to give one of his patented 'are you daft' looks, but his brother, to his credit, didn't blush.

"Of course it isn't, Reg."

Regulus ran one thumb over the frayed edge of the envelope.

" _He_ certainly wanted it to be."

The expression of distaste fell off Sirius's face—in its place, a look of resignation.

"If virtue was _ever_ something this family valued, Regulus—" He sighed and ran his fingers through his dark fringe. "—It hasn't been for a _very_ long time."

The hand holding the parchment dropped to his brother's side.

For the second time Regulus could offer no argument against his brother. Instead, he dutifully tucked the note back where he had found it and returned to his perusal of the letters, showing no sign that his Sirius's words had effected him besides a faint color on his furrowed brow.

Sirius, more restless than ever—though not yet driven to pacing—walked over to the dining room table, still empty, save the giant accounts book their father had left. He stared at the book, an object of idle curiosity since he'd first been called into his Orion's study as a schoolboy.

He had always associated it with the secret, inscrutable world of what being a man was—the family accounts.

Because there was nothing else to do (and he was bored, and it was _there_ ) Sirius opened the book and flipped to a random page. Something was wedged in between the heavy parchment pages—a letter, which looked as though it had been used as a bookmark once and forgotten. Sirius picked it up—read the postmark, the date, saw the childish handwriting—and his face split into a wide grin of delight.

"I think I've found a historical treasure of my own."

"What is it?" Regulus asked, not looking up.

He waggled it, tauntingly, in the direction of his brother—who, much to his annoyance, didn't notice.

"A letter," he said, voice sing-song. "From _Regulus_."

Sirius unfolded the parchment and tapped it out. He crept to the far end of the room—as far away from the younger Black as it was possible to be.

His brother furrowed his brow in annoyance. Like his father, inexactitude annoyed him.

" _Which_ Regulus?" he asked, haughtily. "Regulus the _first_ , Regulus Argos, Regulus Lepus—"

Sirius grinned, evilly.

"Regulus the _Prat_." He cleared his throat loudly. "' _September the twelfth, 1972_ — _Dear Father—I am writing you from the new mahogany desk that you had grandfather send me from Noire House._ "

Regulus's head shot up—then realization, then the horror that inevitably followed. Realizing he had a captive audience, Sirius went on, in a pitched-up, childish voice.

" _It is_ _very_ _fine, and I imagine I will spend many hours here in my studies and, of course, writing to you and Mother—'_ What a _kiss-up_ you were, Reg—"

His brother let out a cry of protest and leapt to his feet.

"—Give it _back_ —!"

"—Like hell! It's the most entertaining thing I've read all week—"

Prepared for the onslaught, he darted out of Regulus's way as his brother furiously crossed the room in three bounds and zig-zagged to the other side. Frustrated, the younger boy followed him—Sirius had barricaded himself behind the sofa.

"I mean it, Sirius, stop it—"

Regulus made another grab for the note, but his elder brother held it out of reach, laughing boyishly and continuing his recitation.

"— _The Slytherin common room is just as beautiful as you described it, with_ _just_ _as many lovely furnishings—Professor Slughorn has been very good about getting me settled with the rest of the first-year Slytherins, and about my desk, which we had to move a four-poster for—_ "

Regulus swore fiercely at him. Sirius drowned out the protest by speaking louder and leaping onto the sofa.

"— _I know you are very pleased about my sorting, but I still can't help wishing I was in the same dormitory as Sirius_."

Sirius's voice—the childish falsetto—faltered. The free hand that had been warding off his brother fell to his side.

" _I was—so excited to be in school with him, but now that I am here he hardly seems to notice me—_ " He read on, in a dazed voice. " _Gryffindor Tower is—very far from the dungeons, and on weekends he's always off with his friends and doesn't talk to—_ "

Face burning with rage and embarrassment, Regulus snatched the letter from Sirus's slack grip and crumpled it in his fist.

"That's private," Regulus hissed, through gritted teeth. "You had _no right_."

Sirius slowly sank into the couch. He suddenly looked very shrunken, and when he turned to his younger brother, his only offering was a feeble smile.

"It's a—" Sirius grimaced. "It's a matter of family history."

" _Ancient_ history," Regulus muttered, staring at the floor. The neat stacks of papers that had surrounded him—read, yet to read, peruse further—lay in a jumbled mess on Sirius's moldy carpet, scattered from the moment he had vaulted up, ready to tackle his brother to the ground rather than let him read the irrefutable proof that Sirius had once had the power to wound him.

But not even Regulus could bring himself to destroy a piece of family history—one his father would so obviously miss—and so he painstakingly smoothed out the letter again and tucked it into his pocket.

Still red-faced and trembling with anger, he began to rebuild his stacks. Sirius watched him painstakingly skim through each paper, trying to recall what category he had placed them in before the fruits of his labors—as they inevitably always were—had been upset by his brother.

"I never knew you felt that way," Sirius said, after awhile.

"Imagine that—" Regulus muttered, turning his back deliberately towards the sofa. " _You_ not paying attention to anyone but yourself."

He flinched. There was no answer for it—no rejoinder he could give. He didn't have the energy to fight Regulus as he did their parents—maybe because he felt it a losing argument…or perhaps it was just that Reggie didn't bring out the plethora of excuses, grievances, the always shiftable blame, the way _they_ did.

"I just figured—you had your friends in Slytherin, and I had mine." Sirius waved his arms about, vaguely. "We'd just, you know…"

His brother stared at him, blankly—his arms dropped to his sides, with that aura of defeat that lingered about dying plants. Regulus didn't know, evidently—and nor did he.

If Sirius were being honest with Regulus—or with himself—he would not pretend it had anything to do with 'his friends' and 'Reg's friends.' It had never been about that.

The two worlds were not Gryffindor and Slytherin, they were 'the Family' and 'Everyone Else.' Regulus had been the single intersection point that marred an experience that was otherwise entirely made up of the latter.

"Just forget it."

"I don't want to forget it." He sat up. "I want to—talk about it—to you."

"What's the point?" Regulus sneered—or tried. He'd never had much of a face for sneering. The best he could do was grimace. "It's all in the past."

"That's what I thought about Mum and Dad." He got up off the sofa and—to Regulus's surprise—sat down across from him on the floor. "The thing is—it's _not,_ really, is it?"

The younger Black brother looked up, slowly, from the page he'd been pretending to read for upwards of a minute.

"It really doesn't matter to me."

"Right, which is why you're laughing all this off."

Regulus fell silent. He bit his lip and breathed in, shakily—wishing he still had one of Lucretia's awful cigarettes to steady his nerves.

"Look, Reg—I don't know _what_ I was thinking, then. I'm not sure I was thinking much at all. Hogwarts wasn't home, that was all I knew." Regulus had the mask on, that impossible to read expression that reminded him irrepressibly of their father, and it made it difficult to look him straight in the eye. "I saw school as an—an excuse to get away from all that."

 _And you were part of 'all that.'_

Regulus blinked—no sign of forgiveness, or understanding—but perhaps pity.

"I suppose it never occurred to you that there were things _I_ wanted to get away from, too."

It was Sirius's turn to blink. The thought had never even crossed his mind.

"Like what?"

Regulus stared at him, unblinking—expression frozen, _glacial._

"Always being compared to you," he admitted, coldly. "I thought school would level the playing field. I thought for once we'd be the _same_. But of course—being you—" He curled his lip. "—You can never be the same as everyone else."

Sirius sat, frozen, stock-still—immobile. Regulus had not lost his temper this time—he had far _too_ much control now, was riding his emotions like a horse with the bit between its teeth.

But it was hard to swallow, not when he could remember with stinging clarity every comment, _every_ jibe from his mother asking why he could not be better behaved (like Regulus) do as he was told (like Regulus) comport himself with dignity ( _as Regulus did_ )—

He laughed.

"To be fair, Regulus—most of those comparisons were in your favor."

"It was never about me being good—" Regulus scoffed. "Only about getting _you_ to improve."

Sirius felt the blow—sharp, and then just as quickly, he found the anger roused in him.

"What do you think—that it would have been better if I'd been in Slytherin, with you?" He demanded, coldly. "I'm not going to apologize for _who I am_."

Regulus's laugh was almost as bitter as his own.

"I didn't ask you to."

Sirius and he stared at each other. He was struck by the thought that Reggie had grown in the past year—that the gauntness he had noticed in his brother was not from illness, but the inevitable shedding of baby fat—the product of growing older—of growing up. They looked more alike now than they had three years ago, when Sirius had been half a foot taller and pure muscle compared to his brother's lithe frame.

It was like looking in a mirror, in a way. One of those carnival trick mirrors—two people gazing into the same glass reflection, the image distorted, differently depending on a slight adjustment—fat round the middle, skinny in the head. That was them.

Or maybe they were like a telescope—each looking at the other through opposite ends.

He had thought for a long time that their mutual lack of understanding had been the one thing that really bound them together. That had been a comfort, in its way. If he didn't know Regulus, at least his brother didn't know him in return.

Now he was starting to wonder if this was yet _another_ defect singularly his.

"Is this about…the inheritance?" Regulus's pale face flushed scarlet. "I can talk to him. I _will_ get him to change his will—"

"I don't need you to talk to him about that—" He snapped, hotly. "Or anything else—on my behalf."

It was meant to be a peace offering—something to draw them together, solidarity over Orion's autocratic injustice, but the offer only seemed to agitate Reggie more.

Only the memory of Regulus's anger that kept him from blurting out the truth— _too late! I already have!_

He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say _—suit yourself._

"Well, then—you should talk to him. Stand up for yourself. That's probably what he's waiting for—you to assert yourself, so he can make the decision he already wants to." His brother's lip trembled. "He all but told me yesterday that you're the good son and I'm the bad."

Regulus rolled his eyes—it took every ounce of Sirius's self-control not to shove him.

"Yeah, right. He would _never_ say that."

"He did!"

"What were his exact words?" Regulus pressed. Sirius stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. What, was he planning on interpreting? Was he a soothsayer, now?

"Something about how—you know your place and I—don't know mine."

Regulus shut his book and looked up.

"That is _not_ what he meant," he said, quietly. "Not at all."

"Well, are you going to explain?"

"Why don't you try asking _him_?"

He slouched down onto the floor like a football being deflated.

"That's the _last_ thing I want to do," Sirius muttered. He watched his brother gather up the books, the papers—all his half of it, leaving the hurricane wreckage that was Sirius's hard work scattered all over the sofa and its immediate surroundings.

A total disaster—that sounded familiar.

Regulus stood up—and surveyed his elder brother, sprawled out on the floor in a pitiful pose. He smiled, with the kind of wry amusement that Sirius had never seen from him.

It made Sirius feel like the younger one.

"Then you already know his answer."

It was only Regulus's insufferably superior smile that kept him from throwing the nearest quill at his brother's forehead.

As Sirius watched him disappear through the door, to his sanctuary—the refuge of the room they shared—the suggestion remained stubbornly fixed in his mind.

Was he playing stupid with _himself_ as well as his family? With some effort he turned his head.

The scarlet accounts book still lay open on the dining room table.

 _It's taunting me._

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut. Feeling the headache of this morning, along with the nausea produced by the lingering taste of pickled fish, he crawled back onto the sofa, still covered in crinkled papers of times and places long forgotten.

The image of the book as he had first known it, neatly perched on his father's desk—at eye height—stayed with him.

* * *

Orion's younger son was nowhere to be found when he arrived in the flat at the stroke—or just past it—of five o'clock in the evening.

His elder _was_ present—dressed, _mercifully_ , in robes—and curled up on the old armchair engrossed in what looked like a two-week old copy of the _Prophet._

Sirius did not look even raise his eyes when his father opened the front door to the flat, though Mr. Black definitely detected a twitch of the head which indicated that his son was, at the very least, not pretending to be _deaf_.

"What's a six letter word for someone or something that's—a purveyor of confusion?" Sirius squinted at the page. "Starts with an 's.'"

"I think I'm looking at one," his father observed, dryly.

Sirius looked up, and when he opened his mouth to reply he caught sight of his father's expression—then seemed to think better of it.

The corners of Orion's mouth turned up.

"Try ' _sphinx_.'" His eyes lingered on the empty sofa. "Your brother's not _still_ asleep, is he?"

"No—he's going through those letters in the bedroom."

Orion cleared his throat.

"I thought I made it clear," he said, sternly. "You were _both_ to look them over."

Sirius fixed his face in the closest approximation of 'chastened' he could muster.

"We _were_ both doing it—but he…decided to go in the other room. He says I distract him from the work and slow him down." Sirius shrugged and looked up from his paper—his expression unusually muted. "Anyway, I thought you wanted me out here at five, ready and waiting—unless I misunderstood the instructions in your letter, sir."

Orion raised both eyebrows. There was none of the usual sarcasm that would have normally accompanied that word.

"You didn't."

He walked over to the dining room table—bare save the gigantic red accounts book, lying in the exact spot where he'd placed it hours earlier.

"It's good that you were punctual." He pushed the book with his wand to Sirius's usual seat at the table and tapped it; the cover opened of its own accord. "I'm going to show you how to do the monthly accounts—"

"There's no need," Sirius interrupted, briskly. "I've already done them."

Orion's eyes darted up.

"You've already done—"

He flipped the pages in the ledger book until he reached the header, written in his own, neat handwriting: DECEMBER 1979 — JANUARY 1980. Beneath it was long list of names, figures and sums, tallied in equally neat columns.

He held the book out to his son, who had stopped pretending to do his crossword. Sirius tilted his head and gave his father an innocent look.

"Would you care to explain this?"

"I know you're very busy right now," Sirius replied, patiently. "So I figured I'd spare you the trouble and bother of teaching me and I'd just figure it out."

The boy stood up and stretched his arms, the picture of nonchalance. Mr. Black gave his son a hard look. Sirius had surprising control—he did not, in spite of all experience and evidence to the contrary, seem to be trying to wind his father up.

"You thought, rather than _waiting_ for me to explain how it's done, you'd—what?" He raised an eyebrow. "Go through all the old months and work backwards?"

His son shrugged.

"It was straight-forward enough."

Orion considered the boy for a moment, then looked back down at the open page. Sirius had taken great care to write tidily—he had always had a tendency to favor quickness with the quill over deliberation.

"Well, I must say—" He looked back up. "This is…very impressively done."

"Glad you like it." Sirius stretched and tossed the paper back onto his armchair. "If that was everything you wanted, I'm just going to nip into the bedroom and catch a wink before Kreacher gets—"

"Wait a moment."

Sirius stopped at the doorway and turned, slowly.

Orion held up his hand, palm forward—a telltale sign.

"What is it?"

"I said it was _impressively_ done—" His father's eyes gleamed. "I didn't say it was _correct_. There's a mistake—a rather large one, in fact."

He watched the play of emotions on his son's face—Sirius clenched his jaw, then curled his fists. Any check on his temper had clearly been temporary at best.

"What mistake?" Sirius demanded, a hint of churlishness creeping into his voice. "What's wrong with it?"

"Come over here and sit down at the table—" He tapped the spot again. "And I will show you."

Sirius lingered at the door, breathing in and out very slowly—before he stalked around and flung himself into his chair.

"Now. Explain to me how you did it and I'll show you where you went astray." Sirius let out a small noise that sounded like a sigh being smothered.

In a dull, flat tone of voice, Sirius explained how he had added up the monthly expenses of each of the estate's separate households and calculated the allowances, based on the previous months' allocations.

"Sound logic," Orion conceded, when Sirius was done with what he so clearly thought was a tedious speech. "And your arithmetic was certainly correct."

"So, what exactly _is_ it I've done wrong?"

"If it had been any _other_ month of the year, this—" He pointed at the fruits of Sirius's work. "—Would have been correct. The allowances are normally fixed, but in _December_ , everyone is given something extra, based on the success of the tenancies and investments of the estate, scaled per household. Call it a—Christmas bonus."

Sirius pulled a face.

"You're making that up," he said, angrily. "I looked through every month for the last five years. There was _no difference—_ "

"The investments have been stagnant for quite awhile—but they aren't anymore." Sirius nearly snapped his quill in half—Orion gently pulled it out of his hand. "I _did_ specifically instruct you not to do anything until I arrived."

Sirius threw up his hands and gave his father an accusatory look.

"There's _nothing_ wrong with this. I did the _whole thing_ right, and you're just—you _can't_ resist. You're so eager to catch me out in a mistake you had to make one up!"

He started to rise from his chair—but his father reached out and gently but firmly pressed his shoulder down. His son sank back into the seat.

"I haven't the time or energy for such foolishness," he said, gently but firmly. "Anyway, even if you _had_ done this correctly, I'd still make you do it again. It's good practice."

He waved his wand at the sheet of sums and figures, and the ink vanished, leaving the page a smooth blank once more.

Over his son's mumbled protests, Orion set to explaining how the extra calculation factored into setting the allowances for each individual household. Sirius's fingers trembled with repressed anger—but when Orion made him repeat back what he said, it became obvious to Mr. Black that he _was_ retaining the information.

Of course he was. He was a clever boy, after all.

"Now—you'll do each household, and I'll check your work after. That will prevent any errors from carrying over to the final totals."

"Are you planning on hovering above me the whole time, breathing down my neck, waiting to pounce on the first mistake I make?" Sirius asked, petulantly.

As he was bent over the page, he missed his father's smile.

"I don't imagine I'll have to." He sat down in the chair next to his son. "You have a real knack for this. It's almost—" Orion paused, significantly. "—As if you were _born_ to do it."

He couldn't see his Sirius's expression—but the tips of his ears burned a telling scarlet.

Sirius busied himself with the work, painstakingly copying out the figures for each Black family member, the expenses from the previous month that were drawn from their coffers and what would be placed into it the following, based on their needs for the month. Each person had a unique set of circumstances attached to their station in life—there were arrangements made with in-laws, marriage contracts, expenditures outside of the family's purview.

Sirius didn't ask a single clarifying question.

"Mistake aside—that _was_ an impressive first attempt," Orion remarked, idly, as he checked his wife's Aunt Cassiopeia's accounts for the month of November. "You really _are_ far better at this than I was at your age."

Sirius dipped his quill with too much force and spattered ink on the table.

"I don't need you to _patronize_ me, thank you." He sniffed. "It was completely _bollocks_."

Orion sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You always get _so_ frustrated when anything you attempt doesn't go perfectly well the first time." He tilted his head. "Why is that?"

"Gee, I wonder," Sirius mumbled, voice sullen. "Could it _possibly_ have something to do with having a pair of—"

He cut himself off, abruptly. Conscious of the burning, knowing look of Orion—Sirius returned to fiddling with the calculations of how much more gold his elderly grandmother would need in her dress budget for the first quarter of the new year.

Orion let out another, less audible sigh. He wondered if it occurred to Sirius how much easier this would have been if he'd waited to have it taught to him, rather than painstakingly working backwards from the end results.

 _He always has to do things the hard way._

He was too clever for his own good.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know."

Sirius looked up from the page—the soft, gently upbraiding voice was so unlike Orion's usual mode that it clearly took the boy off-guard.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't have to be ashamed of caring what your father thinks of you."

Orion's expression was calm—knowing. Sirius glared at him.

"I don't give a _damn_ what you think of me."

Mr. Black ignored him.

"I don't know what you believe it accomplishes to pretend as if you don't." He spoke with maddening patience. "It's perfectly natural. It would be odd if you _didn't_ care."

His son's face flushed with embarrassment—as if he was listening to his father explain how 'natural' it was, when a man and woman were married and had to produce a child—

"Anyway, it's in your blood," Orion continued, with some irony. "All Blacks want to please their fathers. You were bred for it."

Sirius buried his face in his hands.

"Can we declare a moratorium on all discussions of my ' _breeding_ '?" he asked, voice muffled by his palms. "Or breeding in general?"

"You certainly aren't fooling _me_ —and I would assume that's the _object_ of this charade," Orion pointed out, archly. "I don't even think you're fooling yourself."

"I'm not trying to—"

"—You're very capable," he cut him off, tone intent. "I've always thought that of you."

Sirius looked up at his father, expression a mixture of confusion—and, Orion thought, stranger still—alarm.

"Why are you—where the _hell_ is this coming from?"

Mr. Black surveyed him calmly but didn't reply.

Annoyed, Sirius twisted around his in his seat.

"I don't know _what_ it is you're on about—but let me make things clear for you," he said, enunciating the words slowly. "I _have_ never and _will_ never care about your opinion of me or—or of _anything_ else."

He ended his sentence with a dramatic flourish of his hands.

"Really?" Orion raised an eyebrow. "You've _never_ cared?"

" _Really._ "

"Funny—" His eyes narrowed. "That doesn't match what your _friend_ said."

Sirius went pale.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, and Orion was amused to hear the panic creep into his voice.

"That Lupin boy." He allowed himself the rare pleasure of a smile. "He told me you used to _complain_ that your mother and I were the only ones you couldn't please."

Sirius pushed out his chair roughly and stood up. Orion's eyes followed him, lazily—though he was perfectly ready to reach out and catch the boy by the forearm if he attempted to storm off—he did not think he would.

 _That_ would be accepting defeat.

"What are you—how—" Sirius sputtered. "Are you _interrogating_ my mates, now?"

Orion snorted.

"It was hardly an _interrogation._ " He laughed, grimly. "He _volunteered_ it."

Sirius's protests—his anger—were somewhat blunted by this. His father continued, wryly,

"In fact, if I'm not mistaken he came very close to _admonishing_ me."

Orion's son's brow furrowed, he looked as though he wanted to ask what his father meant—but he thought better of it, and instead merely tossed his head and sat back down, rather _primly_ in Mr. Black's estimation.

"There's no one in my life who can resist sticking their nose in my affairs," he muttered, darkly, pulling the accounts book back towards him. "Everyone's a bloody meddler."

"Perhaps you ought to consider _why_ that is," Mr. Black remarked, dryly, as he watched his son pick up seamlessly from where he'd left off.

Sirius glared at him, hard—a stubborn look, but it was also one Orion recognized and found gratifying. It was the final heel being dug in, the last gasp of breath before capitulation.

"About…your friend," he continued, giving Sirius a careful, sideways look. The quill froze over the page, and came dangerously close to dripping onto the parchment. "He's a—quite an _interesting_ young man."

Sirius bent his head.

"No, he isn't."

"I found him so," Orion drawled. "What does he do for a living?"

Sirius set the quill down on the flat surface of the highly polished wood.

"He's in the Order, like me."

"But surely that doesn't _pay._ " Sirius's shoulders stiffened. "His father's the most respected man in his field, and quite in demand at the Ministry. You'd think he'd be able to get his _only son_ a job better than dishwashing at the Leaky Cauldron."

He held the old copy of the _Prophet_ out in front of Sirius's face. His son snatched it and—after seeing the circled advertisement and Remus's handwriting—crumpled it into a ball and flung it across the room.

"Just—don't worry about Remus," He said, picking up the quill again. "Don't worry about any of my friends, in fact. They're—none of your business."

"You're my son," Orion answered him, simply. "Who you associate with _is_ my business."

He didn't need to say it softly, dangerously or angrily. It was a point of fact, and his banal statement of it seemed to annoy Sirius more than screaming would have.

"I think Regulus had a point about getting distracted," he finally said, in a haughty tone of voice. "All this conversation is—distracting me from my work. I'd prefer it if we—didn't speak for awhile."

"As you wish," Mr. Black agreed, sanguinely. An obvious concession, but as he'd handily won the bout—it made no difference to him.

Sirius could be just as revealing silent as he was speaking.

He was true to his word and allowed Sirius to work for nearly ten minutes without conversation. He could see—as had been the case, in the rare times in the past when he had troubled himself to examine in elder son closely—how aware Sirius was of the paternal scrutiny, and how much self-control his boy was exerting to _hide_ that awareness.

He reached out and rested his hand on his shoulder. Sirius tensed, reflexively, almost as if he was going to try to jerk off the grip—but Orion merely squeezed. He felt his son squirm a little underneath his hand, noticed that telling way his ears reddened—but he remained, and eventually the shoulder underneath Mr. Black's hand relaxed again.

He kept it there—feeling as comforted by the gesture as he hoped his son did, and trying to put out of his head the idea that the light pressure was from any latent fear that if he went slack for just a _moment,_ that young shoulder would slip out from under him.

"Has something changed from yesterday?" Orion remarked, as he—still resting his hand on Sirius's shoulder, glanced over it to check his son's work.

"What do you mean?"

"You're in a very conciliatory mood, that's all. I've never known you to shy away from an argument."

The gigantic one they'd had the day before was still looming between them like a specter. He'd have said that Sirius had no fight left in him—except he had after dinner, always had, in fact. Orion was sure he had it in him now—had felt the kick against the physical liberty he'd taken—but Sirius was holding back—restraining himself.

The question was— _why_?

"Yes, well—I've turned over a new leaf," Sirius said, blandly. "I've decided not to fight with you anymore."

"Oh?" Orion's eyes trailed down the perfect line of numbers. "And why's that?"

"My mother asked me not to."

Orion looked around.

"Is _that_ what you spoke about when she came over here and breakfasted with you this morning?"

"Among other things," his son answered, shortly. Orion lowered his face to be level with Sirius's.

" _What_ other things?"

"This and that. Mother-son…stuff." He glanced up. "She doesn't like us fighting and so—as a Christmas gift—I promised to behave myself. Keep the peace. This is me— _peacekeeping_."

Mr. Black suppressed a harsh laugh. What a different idea the two of them had of 'behaving.'

"Interesting to see how quick you are to obey when _she's_ the one giving the order."

"Well, maybe she's more persuasive than you are."

Orion's nostrils flared.

"That was really all you talked about?"

"I never said that." He smiled, innocently. "Why don't you ask _Mother_?"

Orion slipped on the blank, impassive expression that he had used for his entire adult life to conceal his thoughts. He did not like the idea of those two plotting together—a volatile combination at best—but he knew Walburga and the mood she was in, and his wife would take any question he posed to her on the content of _that_ conversation as an accusation.

He might still be able to coax it out of the boy, at any rate.

"Perhaps I will—over dinner."

"I'm surprised we're having it tonight," Sirius murmured, his voice oddly muted. "What with your—company."

"They're out for the evening. Don't worry," Orion assured, with barely concealed sarcasm. "You'll be rid of us soon enough. I don't imagine we'll be able to get out of hosting dinner for Narcissa at least _one_ day she's with us."

His son made a noncommittal noise. He noticed Sirius—up until now so decisive with his quill strokes—fidgeting with the implement.

"By the way—" Orion cleared his throat. "I'm still waiting for you to ' _take care of that_.'"

"What do you mean?"

He drew himself up.

"Your 'solution to both our problems.'" He tilted his head. "I don't suppose that will be materializing any time soon."

"Oh. Right. Erm… _that_." Sirius drummed his fingers on the edge of the page. "Thing is—I decided upon further reflection that it be more prudent to just—let the situation be, for the present."

He said all this while staring at the woodgrain in the table.

"Oh, you _did_ , did you? Well, that's all well and good for you, but it doesn't exactly leave me in a favorable position." Orion shook his head. "After all that boasting, I half expected she'd up and vanished in the middle of the night when I rose this morning. As it was—I found my otherwise peaceful breakfast interrupted by an— _intruder_."

"Was she—" He stopped himself.

"What?"

"Never mind."

Orion gave him a hard look—and Sirius fell silent again. There was nothing to be gained by going down that avenue with his father—and he must've realized, for he suddenly found the work highly interesting.

In truth, Orion didn't see much harm in the girl—at least, she gave no signs of being anything more than what she appeared, a silly schoolgirl his son had managed to attract the attention of through his near pathological need to draw attention to himself at any function.

Her presence would be one of the relatively minor trials to be endured this Christmas.

It was only when his son reached Cygnus's family expenses that Orion felt the need to speak again.

"You'll want to be careful with your uncle's estate." He twisted in his seat to look over the page. "There's been some recent changes in how he's given his portion."

Orion kept his voice placid—albeit a touch guarded. It was a talent he'd developed—what he lacked as a gamester he could more than make up for when discussing the financial affairs of his family.

"I noticed that," Sirius replied, flatly.

It was a skill Sirius would have to learn.

"Right. Well. It _used_ to be that he got a lump sum which he distributed himself, but now I separate it out for him—Narcissa and Bellatrix's marriage allotments, as well as Druella's allowance from her parents, for the upkeep of the estate."

"Did they find out, or was it you?"

Another trick was to act as though you were hard of hearing.

"I'm sorry?"

Just a smidgen of warning—faint but distinct. Sirius crinkled his nose—the same childish action he would have given when he was a boy and a plate of asparagus was put before him.

"Or did _she_ throw him over?"

Orion stood up. His son risked raising his head to follow him with his eyes, and found his father practically looming over the table, wearing a rather forbidding look.

" _Knowing_ something," Mr. Black warned him, icily. "And _understanding_ it are not the same thing."

Sirius's lip curled.

"What's there to understand?" He leaned back in his chair, carelessly. "He must've been keeping her in style and skimming quite a bit off the top to do so. I'm just _curious_ who it was that put a stop to it—you or her."

"Your uncle's personal affairs—" The word caught in his throat, unfortunate double meaning all too clear. "—Are none of mine."

"They are when you're _bankrolling_ them."

Orion studied him for a moment while considering how best to approach such a delicate topic. It had never occurred to him that he would have to.

When he was young, such things were never spoken of openly. But of course, Sirius _was_ Sirius—brazen to the last.

"You're very young, still. In time you'll see the extent to which the world falls short of your youthful ideals." He heard the weariness in his own voice. "Perhaps you'll even learn to forgive it for its many failings."

Sirius tossed his quill aside.

"Are you making _excuses_ for Cygnus?"

"Of course not." He frowned. "I am no more in the business of _excusing_ the vices of other men—whether they be extraordinary or commonplace—than I am in judging them."

" _You_ would never do that to Mum."

The utter certainty in his son's voice made Orion want to laugh—but he had long since learned to restrain that impulse—especially when it wouldn't be understood.

"No." He leaned his elbow on the table. "But I've failed her in innumerable other ways."

Sirius stared up at him.

"Given the choice," Orion continued, voice tinged with bitterness. "I think she'd just as soon take the mistress."

Sirius's mouth flattened into a thin line.

"I doubt that."

His father tapped the page, indicating that his son should return to the business at hand, rather than meddling into the affairs of other members of his family.

"Don't mention this in front of your mother," Orion said, suddenly, after a few minutes of quill scratching.

"You mean she doesn't know?"

"She sees what she wants to see," his father replied, enigmatically. "Your uncle is eagerly awaiting the birth of his first grandson. What is past is past—over and done with. It would only upset her to have it brought up now."

"Yeah, God forbid anyone in this family directly confront anyone else," Sirius muttered into the book. "Better we all pretend it never happened."

His oath to his mother must've been weighing heavily on his mind, Orion thought, if _that_ was all the provocation he was to have on this point.

"It is possible to say _too much_ ," Mr. Black said, when his son's grumbling had ceased.

"Like when?" Sirius murmured. His handwriting, which had started so neat, had grown sloppy as the exercise neared its end.

"Like—say…when one is at the Ministry of Magic, encounters an important member of government, and decides to be _cheeky_."

Sirius winced and looked up…very slowly.

"You didn't happen to…run into Barty Crouch today, did you?"

"I saw him in the Atrium when I was waiting for your grandfather," Orion said, coldly. "He seemed _very_ amused by his encounter with my son."

Sirius wrinkled his nose in disgust—at his rotten luck more than his indiscretion.

"Have you _no_ sense of prudence? It was foolish of you in the extreme to speak to him at all—let alone about _me_."

"It's not my fault! He was the one who brought you up."

"That's nonsense. Why would he?"

"Because I look like you. I couldn't help that he recognized me." He slouched down on the table. "What was I supposed to do, pretend like I was someone else?"

"I had a very near miss." He wagged his finger in his son's face, taking pleasure in how well and truly trapped Sirius was. "Crouch was _this_ close to bringing you up in front of my father. What was I to do then?"

Sirius sighed and ran his hands through his fringe, straightening up again.

"Easy—the same thing you've been doing the past three years—" He snorted. "Just pretend like you don't know me and I don't exist. I'm sure you're used to it, by now."

A spasm in his chest distracted Orion momentarily, prevented him from the violent exclamation that was hovering just below the surface. He had never gotten used to that, not in three years, not once had the words 'my only son' been wrenched from his lips.

Little more than a week, and he'd grown quite accustomed to having two again.

He had no intention of getting 'used' to anything else.

"I assume you weren't _really_ there because you wish to be an Auror," he continued, changing his tact.

"Of course not. That was just a cover story—I needed an excuse to be at the Ministry, that's all."

"But you _have_ applied for that position before."

"How do you know about—"

"Suffice it to say that I _do_ , and leave it at that," Orion snapped. "Well? Did you?"

Sirius let out a long sigh.

"It was something I briefly considered after school, that's all." He lifted his shoulders. "But then I figured—why bother? I can do the same thing for the Order without having some Ministry toff like Crouch breathing down my neck."

 _And Dumbledore lets you run wild and do as you like,_ he thought, burning with resentment. _Because it's useful to him._

"What were you talking to Alastor Moody about?"

Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Why do _you_ think he wanted to talk?"

Mr. Black scowled. Not wishing to start the same argument they'd had the day before, his only response was to stiffly tell his son to 'get on with his work.'

Sirius finished the task of doing the family accounts for December very quickly, practically shoved the book in his father's direction, and retreated to his spot on the sofa chair.

Orion read through the numbers and figures very slowly and methodically, marking off each in his private diary.

"I see you factored in the Christmas purchases you made," Mr. Black remarked, idly. "Very proactive."

"It seemed the obvious thing to do." Sirius laughed and curled up onto the chair. "Did you know you and Regulus got each other the same gift?"

Orion lifted an eyebrow.

"Did we?" he asked, in a tone of mild surprise. "How odd."

"It's not, actually. He's imitating you in all things—even crap gift-giving." Sirius laughed. " _Really,_ sir—an eagle feather quill?"

"It is a practical and appropriate present for a young man."

"It's boring. You should have gotten him Quidditch club tickets or—something he'd actually enjoy."

"What a frivolous idea—"

"I just think he'd like something indicative of a life outside this flat—a quill doesn't fit the bill. Writing letters is just about the only activity he does these days."

Orion turned the page of the accounts book to check a figure from a previous month.

"Has he given you anything to post today?"

"You mean, has he given me any more secret messages for Albus Dumbledore with Death Eater intel?"

Orion shut the book loudly.

"No, he didn't. I did offer. But he sadly declined." He ignored the glacial look his father gave him. "I was thinking, if this whole informant gig doesn't work out for him, we could start our own Resistance operation on the side. Sort of—Black brothers for hire. "

"For that to work, one of you would have to cease being a _stupendous bungler_ where espionage is concerned."

His son went red and turned in the chair to face away from Orion.

"You had better master doing the family accounts first, at any rate. You made another error."

"No, I didn't," Sirius muttered, at the wall.

"Yes, you _did_." Orion's eyes narrowed. "You've left off the allowance of one of the accounts attached to the main estate."

"It's because I haven't taken anything out of that account since I came of age and I don't intend to, ever." He turned to face his father. "I'm trying to save you gold. All that money is just sitting there, when you could be putting it to good use—giving it to someone that _wants_ it."

Orion surveyed him coolly.

"I will correct the error myself this time," he said, voice dangerously soft. "The next time you do this exercise, there will be no mistakes, deliberate or otherwise—do you understand me?"

Sirius didn't answer.

"I said, ' _do you understand me_ '?"

A pair of stormy gray eyes blinked up at him over the knees.

"…Yes, sir," Sirius said, softly.

He looked tired—and impossibly young. Clearly the energy it took to 'keep the peace' with his father was wearing him out.

"Your mother will be here soon," he said, in a gentler tone, as he got up from the table and approached his son. He stopped above the chair. "You should go in the other room and have a rest in the meantime."

"Is that a _suggestion_ , or an _order_?"

He had a trace of his old sullenness, though it was muted and dulled by exhaustion and—something else he didn't quite like. Was it resignation?

Orion gently tilted his chin up and made his son look him in the eye.

"It's both," he murmured, and then he grasped the boy's arm and gave it another squeeze before letting go. "Now—go on. I'll send the elf to wake you when it's time for dinner."

Sirius slowly got to his feet.

As Orion watched his son slink off through the kitchen door, he was reminded unaccountably of a certain flattened-eared black dog in the garden of Malfoy Manor.

In spite of himself, he smiled.

* * *

 _He was in the heart of the forest, the enormous trees forming a canopy above him that blocked all the sunlight. The jungle air was humid and thick—like England's never was._

 _Sirius slashed through a branch with his bowie knife—_ When did I get a bowie knife?— _it was the sort of thing he'd fantasized about as kid, and the feeling of whacking trees and bushes and undergrowth, carving a path out of the jungle, was just as satisfying as his boyhood fantasy of it had been._

 _At his right ride was the cheery, familiar hum of machinery—he looked over. Elvira rolled up beside him all on her own, like a dog or the particularly intelligent horse of a telly Western._

 _Which…didn't make sense, but neither did him holding a shiv, or a motorbike being able to comfortably roll along the floor of a jungle._

 _He patted the motorbike on its seat. She let out a revving noise, almost like a purr._

 _"We're free, girl." He breathed in the air. It was peace itself. Quiet, seclusion—nothing but the sound of birds and insects and some distant river…_

 _The Amazon. That's where he was. Away from civilization, away from everything._

 _"We made it…just you and me…"_

 _That rush of relief flooded over him…no one could find him here. He was safe._

 _And then, just as the thought slipped through his mind—_

 _There was a rustling in the bushes behind him._

 _He froze. Sirius had the sudden, irrational hope it was a jaguar, a Demiguise, anything but—_

 _"So—_ this _is where you've been hiding."_

Holy shi—

"Master Sirius! _Master Sirius!_ "

Sirius jolted out of bed with a cry. He blinked down at the figure who was tugging forcefully on his arm. Kreacher stood at the head of the bed, drooping ears level with the bedside table.

The fire had been lit, making the room unaccountably stuffy. _Not humid like the Amazon, though._

"Wha…? What d'you want—?"

"You must wake up, Master Sirius." The elf pulled his arm up—Sirius had to wrench it out of his grip. "Mistress sent Kreacher to wake you."

"What time is—" He wiped drool off his chin and looked over at the carriage clock on the mantle—when he saw, he bolted out of bed. It was nearly eight. " _Shit_ —"

How had he managed to sleep so late—why had no one woken him?

Sirius stood up, and smoothing out his wrinkled robes as best he could, hurried through the kitchen and out to the sitting room, only to find—

The entire family, halfway through dinner.

"Oh, Sirius Orion—" Walburga nodded at him. "You're up. Good."

Sirius stared at them all, looking, he imagined, very stupid as he did so.

"I don't understand," he said, in a weak voice, staring at the remains of the soup course being cleared away by the family servant, who had hurried out of the bedroom behind him to resume what he had presumably started before he came to stir Sirius from the bedroom.

His father cleared his throat—Sirius looked over at him.

"We sent the elf to check on you an hour ago, but you were in such a deep sleep your mother didn't want to wake you." He wiped his mouth elegantly, with two dabs. "She seemed to think you needed the rest."

"Erm…oh."

"—I didn't imagine you'd thank us if you missed the main course of your dinner, though," Mrs. Black added, placidly. "Do you feel better?"

"I…" He was overcome with an inability to speak coherently. At his spot across from Sirius's, Regulus watched him with that curious, closed-off expression. "…Much, thank you."

"I am very glad to hear it," his mother replied, in a clipped voice. "You looked peaked this morning. You should make it a point of having a lie-down every afternoon. It's good for you."

He sank slowly into his chair, and as the family was distracted by the process of Kreacher serving them the next course ( _duck à l'Orange_ ) that any conversation beyond the mechanics of this operation ceased.

Sirius felt strange—incapable of believing his incredible fortune at having slept through half of this interminable meal, but strangely put-out that they hadn't waited for him.

 _They've been having dinner without you for years—they're used to_ that _too, by now._

Walburga cleared her throat, delicately. His eyes turned to her—his mother's expression was cool and impassive, impossible to understand. Given their breakfast conversation, and the dangerous power she had over him now—power that he was even more uneasy about than Orion—he found her unsettlingly hard to read now.

He thought of his dream and shivered.

What a different atmosphere there was around this table today than there had been the previous night. Then there had been the pretense of normalcy, now the air was thick with a tension that he thought the silence might stretch on through after dinner port.

 _I know why we're quiet._ _Four people who can barely keep their lies straight._

"Did anything interesting happen to you today, Sirius Orion?"

The knife he'd been using to saw the leg of duck slipped from his hand. On instinct, he looked over at Regulus. His brother read his thoughts in his expression—a talent they didn't share and which Sirius was envious of, in this moment.

"I've already told them about Aunt Lucretia," Regulus supplied, a tinge of irony in his voice. "There didn't seem much point in concealing it."

He looked over to his parents, eager to gauge their reaction to the news of the afternoon's excitement. As he could have predicted, Orion seemed annoyed at the knowledge of his elder sister's meddling visit—though hardly surprised. His mother was more inscrutable.

Sirius sighed.

"Given her love of crowing and 'I told you sos', that's a fair point. She'd have told them herself if you or I didn't." He gave his brother a wry look, then turned to Mr. Black, looking expectant. "It certainly spiced up our afternoon having Lucretia here. I almost expected her to pop back in for dinner."

"Your brother seems to think she came out of mere curiosity," Orion said, voice more serious. "Do you agree with him?"

"Why _else_ would she have come?" Sirius deflected. His father narrowed his eyes. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features.

"I don't know," he said, coolly. "That is why I'm asking you."

He'd always been able to intuit when Walburga had him in her sights, and he felt his mother's gaze now. Sirius tapped his fingers against the side of his chair.

 _'I think she's scheming something with Mum'_ was probably not the most prudent answer to this question.

No…no, he'd have to think of something else. He folded his hands on the front of the table and looked up into his father's eyes, expression unusually earnest.

"Have you considered speaking to _her_?"

Orion opened his mouth, no doubt to snap back a smart dismissive reply—but then, as his son's words hit him, he faltered.

"I…beg your pardon?"

"She's your sister. Instead of speculating about motives, nefarious or otherwise, with a nephew—a nephew, I'll remind you, to whom she has spoken once in three years—why not try asking her why she came by this flat?" He tilted his head, innocently. "She might even tell you the truth."

A lengthy pause followed this suggestion. From the way Sirius's parents were staring at him, you'd have thought he'd sprouted the head of a hippogriff.

"Believe it or not, in _other_ peoples' families," he added, helpfully. "The default assumption is not that every individual is plotting against everyone else."

His mother cleared her throat—when he glanced over her and met her cool gaze, he picked up on the message. _Don't forget your promise about provoking your father._

He let out a sigh—quieter than the first—and turned back to Orion, who was still staring at his elder son in bewilderment.

"I think she was just—pleased at herself for figuring it out. You've nothing to fear from Lucretia apart from a slip of the tongue, and in this case—" He glanced over at Regulus. "—She knows better."

That did little to assure Orion. He turned to his wife, looking for support—but found instead just as flippant a conversation partner as their son.

"He's right." She shrugged, profoundly unconcerned. "Your sister is nothing but a nosy and troublesome gossip and I daresay we will never hear the end of it—but that's where the story will end."

Orion was in no mood to argue the point—so he let the subject drop, with a 'hm' almost as dismissive as his wife's.

"Surely that wasn't the _only_ thing you got up to today, Sirius Orion."

Whenever one parent spoke, he had to look over at the other one—a compulsion. He wondered how obvious it was for Regulus, sitting directly across from him, watching his eyes dart back and forth as if he were watching a tennis match.

There was nothing to read in Orion's expression. Not for the first time in his life, the thought struck him how exhausting it must be to be his father, the energy it must take to _always_ wear that mask.

"My father showed me how to do the monthly accounts."

Walburga raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" She laid her fork down daintily. "How was that?"

The question was not directed at anyone in particular, and if the silence was anything to go by, neither man was particularly eager to answer it. The only sound that punctuated the room was Kreacher clearing away the remains of the main course, while Regulus pushed around the food on his plate, before—

"Your son did _very well_ ," Mr. Black said, at last. "If he keeps it up, he'll be doing all the accounts by himself, before too long."

Sirius winced, though he managed to cover the face with a hasty bout of chewing.

"What about you, Sirius Orion?" His mother pressed. She was determined to facilitate conversation between her elder son and husband tonight, despite the overwhelming evidence that this venture would be fruitless. "How did you find the task?"

"Eye-opening—enlightening and instructive." Some of his father's irony creeped into his words. "Do you know how much your mother spends on her wardrobe per month?"

Walburga laughed, airily.

"Goodness, no."

"Well, I do—and it's insane." He snorted. "As is the monthly arithmetical nightmare my father puts himself through to facilitate her spending habits."

Sirius took care to keep his voice civil and polite, so as not to be seen as 'provoking'—and to his immense relief, Orion did not allow himself to be provoked. If he was surprised, it was only mildly—and he was more interested than offended.

"You didn't mention you felt this way earlier, when I was teaching you the accounts."

"You only asked me to learn the process—not give my opinion on if I thought it was well conceived."

A deft parry. Orion, who couldn't help but respect a verbal lancing, nodded thoughtfully and leaned back in his chair.

"And you don't think it is?"

"Not at all. It's needlessly complicated and barely succeeds in its supposed object."

"Which is?"

"Keeping the gold under control, of course!"

"How would you go about curbing your grandmother's—erm, _spending habits_?" Mr. Black cocked an eyebrow.

"That's easy—I'd give her and everyone else in her family a _per annum_ allowance and call it a day."

Mr. Black's lip curled.

"You think you're the first Black to ever think of that?"

"Of course not. I'm sure you _fantasize_ about it daily." Sirius grinned, enjoying himself. "The only reason you don't _do it_ is because you know none of them can restrain themselves, and if you gave them the lot up front they'd be banging on your door in February, asking for their coffers to be refilled."

His father seemed somewhere between amused and irked at his firstborn's cheek. The first emotion won out, though—and the look Orion gave him was unusually indulgent.

"So…you'd give everyone their portion in January?"

"An equal portion," Sirius corrected, firmly. "Not exorbitant. Enough to live on—like everyone else."

His father tapped his chin and considered—really considered—the proposition. It was an odd feeling for Sirius, to feel as though something he'd said was actually worthy of his father's consideration.

As if he was actually a man, and not the insolent boy Orion still saw him as.

"It's an interesting idea—but I fear you may be a tad naive about how well it would work in practice."

"It would be hard at first, but they'd adjust—if they were forced to." He smiled. "You underestimate the degree to which they take advantage of your good nature."

Orion had never had the experience of _that_ accusation, and it clearly amused him.

"A good nature, I take it, that you don't believe you share?" he asked, dryly, as he took another sip of wine from his goblet.

Sirius lifted both hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, an exaggerated mirroring of his father's action.

"Oh, no. Not at all," his son's voice turned hard. "If it were me, I'd let them fend for themselves. I wouldn't coddle them. They're Blacks, after all. They should have the fortitude to adapt."

Orion studied him for a long time. Mrs. Black, for whom the matters of finance, trusts and allowances were wholly of the masculine realm, remained demurely silent during the exchange—though she, like her younger son, watched keenly. Both of them aware of the nearly imperceptible shift between Sirius and Orion.

Mr. Black suddenly turned to his wife to address her.

"Your son will be a very interesting head of this family, Walburga," he said, placidly turning to his salad. "I regret I won't live to see him take possession."

At this comment—and the tone of matter-of-fact satisfaction that went with it—Sirius's face turned red. He was keenly aware of having been drawn inadvertently into playing by his father's rules, on his father's terms.

"Regulus found something interesting today when we were going through those papers," Sirius blurted out, jerking his head towards his brother. "The ones you gave me yesterday."

"Oh…?" Orion turned his eyes towards Regulus, who had been playing with the salad Kreacher had set in front of him for upwards of a minute. "What was this, Regulus?"

Regulus colored and gave Sirius a fleeting look of irritation. He had never enjoyed being singled out at family dinners.

"It was a letter to Phineas Nigellus from…his son," Orion's younger son said, quietly.

"You know—the disowned one," Sirius supplied, seeing the look of identical confusion on their parents' face. "Looks like they kept up a clandestine correspondence— _after_ the unfortunate political activities got him chucked. I would've never guessed your great-grandfather was so sentimental."

"He wasn't," Mr. Black said, dryly. "What were the contents of this letter?"

He and Regulus exchanged a silent look, but it was impossible to miss the slight shaking of his younger brother's head from side-to-side. _Yeah, starting a fight over how offensive the family motto is—probably under the header of not 'keeping the peace.'_

"A longstanding disagreement on a matter of…family history."

Neither parents asked for more than that—but the resident family historian, Orion, after expressing interest in seeing the document in question, extracted a promise from Regulus to fetch it after dinner. Regulus, who was even more eager than his mother to see the subject changed from this particular theme, actually made a few timid attempts to steer them to safer waters, but as usual, his brother had different ideas.

"I was really surprised Reg found that letter. Do you think there could be more of them?"

"Unlikely. It was very strange that he even found one. It must've gotten missed."

"You mean, when he burned all the correspondence from him and purged his son's very existence from the record?"

Walburga delicately cleared her throat, and Sirius, very aware of the tightly restrained scrutiny of his mother, hastily fell silent.

"Since you're both here now," Orion said, after the family had finished the salad course. "It's just as well we went over our plans for the Christmas holiday."

He explained, in flat, emotionless tones, how they would be entertaining the family for Christmas Eve at Grimmauld Place, as usual. After the outburst at Arcturus's party he had witnessed, Sirius expected Walburga to say something snide to this, but she remained calm, and if he noticed a slight tightening in her neck, it was only because he was looking for it. She did chime in that they would check in on their sons sometime in the afternoon of the 24th, to make sure 'all was well.'

 _What does she think, I'm going to skive off watching my own brother?_ Sirius thought, after the pointed remark made in his general direction about bringing over all the games that Regulus and he used to play when they were boys, so they had plenty to 'amuse themselves with.'

Then he remembered—she must've been thinking of Lily and James's party, and the invitation she had declined for him.

He felt a pang in his stomach that had nothing to do with the duck.

"Your cousin has a social engagement the 23rd, so there's no reason for us not to have dinner here." His father's words only vaguely registered for Sirius. "As for _tomorrow_ , I expect we'll be dining with Narcissa at Grimmauld—we can't not see her for dinner at least _one_ evening she's staying with us, so your mother will look in on you about tea time—"

"—I'm not sure I'll be able to check in on them tomorrow, Orion."

Mr. Black stopped mid-droning speech to stare at his wife.

"Why is that?"

"Because I'll be out all day," Mrs. Black answered him. "I'm going up to Scotland, to see Horace Slughorn."

The energy at the table immediately changed. Sirius, brain foggy from the wine, from waking up from his nap and strange dream, from the general surreality that surrounded the events of his life—felt a sudden jolt—a bolt from the blue.

"When did this plan come about?" her husband asked, vaguely annoyed.

Walburga took her time answering—choosing that moment, apparently with no strategy, to pour and take a lengthy sip of after-dinner port. Her sons and husband watched this on tenterhooks.

"Oh, I had an owl from him—you must've planted the idea in his head," she said, vaguely. "Anyway, I'm not sure how late we'll be out. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure there will be a 'we.'"

If Sirius had been in his animagus form, his ears would have perked up just then.

"I thought you were going to entertain Narcissa tomorrow," Orion said, accusatorially, as if by going on this excursion it followed that he was now being tasked to entertain his niece.

"Well—" She shrugged. "I _did_ offer to take her, but her friend Ms. Battancourt wasn't sure she wanted to go, so I'm not sure if they will."

Sirius knocked his thankfully empty water goblet over.

"You—invited _them_ to come with you?" he asked, righting the cup. "To—Hogsmeade?"

Butter couldn't melt in Mrs. Black's mouth, the look she gave her son was so innocent.

"I thought the girl might enjoy it." Her eyes narrowed on her son. "But for _whatever reason_ she seemed dead set against the scheme."

Sirius's fingers curled around the stem of his wine goblet. If he'd gripped a crystal glass as hard it would've shattered in his hand.

"She…said she didn't want to go?" he asked, in a tight voice.

"She was _emphatic,_ " his mother replied, airily. "I thought it odd. We'll see. Perhaps Narcissa can persuade her to change her mind. I would _so_ like the company, and after the shopping we could go up to the castle. It's very pretty this time of year, you know."

 _She's taunting me, just like that damn book._

Sirius directed his venom at the cheese plate that Regulus passed to him, practically mutilating the gigantic roll of camembert. Had she read his letter? What had she said to Colette?

What was her game?

"I thought you didn't like her."

"Pardon?"

"That girl. Narcissa's friend, what's-her-face—I thought you didn't like her." His lip curled. "Something about her reading too many books."

"There's nothing wrong with reading books," Mrs. Black replied, sanguinely. "It's excessive _novel reading_ I object to. It puts all sorts of silly romantic ideas in girls' heads. Ideas—" She paused. "—Better left inside the covers."

"Ideas like right to self-determination and free will?"

Regulus kicked him under the table. Sirius ignored it, instead turning to his mother and fixing her with a challenging look.

She laughed—a false, stilted sort of affectation.

"Goodness, no! Nothing as lofty as that." Her eyes glinted dangerously over her silver cup. "I was thinking more that they encourage witches to seek out the company of unsuitable men."

Sirius was very aware of his father staring between the two of them, shrewdly. Unlike his wife, Orion was not one to overlook, willfully or otherwise, being spoken around.

"Young women get those ideas from more than novels," Mr. Black remarked, placidly, in an obvious attempt to broaden the subject so widely as to make it too dull to continue discussing. "That's why a girl's education and family matters so much."

"Undoubtedly," his wife agreed. "But novels _do_ tend to exacerbate the problem and encourage otherwise sensible girls to go _wild._ "

Orion raised an eyebrow, gave his wife a look that spoke to silent question—but she was obviously less than inclined to have a wordless exchange with him while their sons were present.

"Regulus," she said, as if just noticing her younger son was present at the table. "What do _you_ think of her?"

He looked up from his plate—very aware that all sets of eyes in the room were on him.

"I'm sorry, Mother—do you mean Colette Battancourt?"

"Yes—you've met her. What do you think?"

"He told you yesterday he thought she was 'very nice'," Sirius cut in, annoyed.

"Yes. That's right." She tilted her chin and leaned on the table, looking thoughtful. "Would you like to see more of her?"

" _What_?"

Regulus suppressed the cry of surprise at the sudden, sharp jab to his toes under the table.

"Narcissa has talked of hardly anything else since she's been with us," his mother continued, casually—immune to the hard stare of Orion and the burning face of her elder son. "She's very eager to reacquaint you. I thought you might be eager as well. Perhaps when the weather's better we'll go to France."

This was too much.

" _You'll_ go to Normandy?" Sirius asked, bluntly. "In the summer?"

Walburga waved the idea off.

"Oh, I'm sure she'll be in the South like everyone else. It's good for your brother to mix in different social circles. It will expand his horizons."

"Since when has 'expanding his horizons' _ever_ been a priority for you?"

Walburga, who'd otherwise been very tolerant of her son's spirited answers, gave him a cold look.

"You seem to be very vexed this evening, Sirius Orion." Her words had a chilly aspect to them. "Perhaps we woke you up from your nap too soon."

It was only the maddeningly maternalistic expression that kept him from bursting out that it was none of her business how much he slept.

He rounded on his father, who was still watching the exchange with impassive interest.

"This trip to the South of France you're apparently planning—will _I_ be invited?" he demanded, suddenly.

Orion let out a humorless laugh.

"When she hatched up the idea, I doubt your mother thought you'd consent to go."

Walburga cut her grape in two with dainty precision.

"If you'd _like_ to join us in France," she said, innocently. "Then of course you are welcome. Is there something in particular that draws you there?"

Realization dawned on Regulus's face—but he quickly schooled the expression and looked down.

Sirius felt his face slowly redden the longer Mrs. Black stared at him, expectantly.

"Of—of course not," he mumbled. "Of course I don't want to come."

He expected this answer to annoy her, but—unsettlingly enough—it seemed more to amuse. She shrugged, carelessly.

"Well, then." Sirius's fingers in his lap trembled. "I suppose your brother will have to enjoy the social benefits of the place all on his own."

He opened his mouth to backtalk, but the realization that there was nothing he could say that wouldn't be disastrous on every level—he contented himself with noisily chewing a pear instead.

The family's silence was only broken by Mrs. Black demurely asking her husband what the time was. She frowned when he told her.

"We'll have to cut this evening short, I'm afraid," she told her sons, with real regret. "What time does curtain go up at the Orpheum, Orion?"

"Eight, I think," he said, off-handedly.

"That means the intermission will be in less than half an hour—I don't think it would be wise for us to arrive home later than the girls two nights in a row."

Sirius, who had already barely been able to believe his luck at missing the beginning of dinner, nudged his brother under the table. Regulus shook his head side-to-side and mouthed the word ' _later_ ' at him.

"What about dessert?"

"You _do_ like your sweets." She smiled, indulgently. "I'll leave it here for you and your brother to enjoy."

"I meant—you aren't staying and having it with us?"

She rose from the table and began to directing Kreacher in the process of cleaning and clearing away, only replying to her son's query with a satisfied smile and the opaque promise that there would be plenty longer evenings for them to enjoy in the future.

When the table had been cleared, she wished her sons each a pleasant night and glided elegantly off to the bedroom to take the floo back to Grimmauld Place. Her younger son, having been tasked with retrieving Phineas Nigellus's letter, followed closely at her heels.

Sirius would have expected Orion to go with them both, but his father was still lingering over the port—he was never one to rush meals—and so the two of them were left alone together at the table.

Sirius's father watched him—he felt that careful, serpentine gaze—dangerously lazy—and was almost certain he was in for a grilling over the sparring—but the interrogation never came.

"Fetch me the accounts book, will you, Sirius?"

He stood up and walked over to the side-table, where it lay, innocently still open to the page he'd marked up hours earlier.

He shut it and walked it over to his father, but hesitated at the last moment.

"I—have something else…"

Sirius rooted around in his pocket and pulled out the crumpled letter, 7 years old—that he'd pick-pocketed from Reg and shoved there when his brother wasn't looking earlier in the afternoon, intending to read it by himself later. _Regulus's first Hogwarts letter home…_

As was so often the case where his relationship with Regulus was concerned, the vague sense of guilt attached had sucked any enjoyment he would have gotten from reading the rest of it, and so it had remained in his pocket.

"I found this inside. I think you were using it as a bookmark."

Orion's eyes widened in surprise.

"…Oh. Was I?" He examined the parchment detachedly. "How curious."

Orion took it, looked over the front, as if he didn't know precisely what it was—but Sirius could tell he recognized it, and had not marked the pages by accident.

"Well. Thank you." He hesitated—a rarity in and of itself. "I've—no idea how _that_ got in there."

Sirius laughed, weakly.

"You're almost as sentimental as Phineas Nigellus."

He'd tried to play it off like a joke, but even Sirius could hear the pained note in his own voice. Certainly it was not lost on his father, who looked up from the creased parchment, a curious expression on his face.

Sirius felt a sudden wave of nausea—a feeling of being exposed. He sometimes liked it better when he didn't know what Orion was thinking.

"I'm sure that's not true." He raised an eyebrow. "I merely keep extensive family records—"

"— _How_ extensive?"

His father considered him, carefully.

"Is that what has you worried?"

He folded the letter and returned it carefully to its spot in the book.

"Wha—"

"I did not _burn_ your letters. Not—" He added, in a voice of infinite weariness. "—That you ever wrote us that many to begin with."

Sirius went crimson, but he was prevented from the need to respond by Regulus's returning with the letter from Phineas the younger to his father. Orion didn't open it in front of them.

"A matter of family history, eh?"

Sirius pursed his lips. He'd known Orion had suspected there was more to it during dinner—it was all too predictable that he'd waited until his wife was safely away before asking for the thorough details.

"It was about the origins of the family motto," Regulus explained. "Phineas—that is, the second son, he—he had very unusual ideas about the crest, and what the coat of arms meant when it was conceived."

"There seems to have been a fundamental disagreement between father and son about what it means to be a Black."

Regulus nudged his brother, but Sirius ignored it, instead giving his father one of his customary 'challenging surly looks'.

Orion didn't rise to the bait. He nodded and promised to look into the matter further to 'get to the bottom' of how such a document could have existed and gone unremarked upon in the records up until then. With a vaguely threatening promise that one of their parents would be in to see them in the afternoon 'so they had both better be here after three', he departed from them as well.

Sirius waited, counting silently the steps—the exact amount of time it would take Orion to reach the fireplace, to grab that pinch of powder, deliberately throw it into the green flame his mother would have left behind (one of her many specialties) and step through to the other side.

 _Three…two…one…_

He vaulted over the sofa and straight for the bedroom, past the magnificent trifle that Kreacher had left for them in the kitchen, over the protests of his brother.

"Where are you—Sirius!"

Regulus ran after him, making it just in time for the door to be slammed shut in his face.

"Sirius—Sirius, what're you _doing_ —?" He rummaged through his pockets—he'd left his wand in the bedroom. "Open the door, you—"

He banged on the door for over a minute, then pressed his ear against it—he could hear muffled voices through the wood—Sirius, and someone indistinct—was he talking to someone through the floo?

An ominous quiet followed, then, the door slowly opened. Regulus leaped back, fully ready to scold and interrogate.

"Why did you—"

A pair of striking emerald eyes peeped through the crack in the door.

"Hello."

Lily Potter, wearing a fuzzy green jumper and a sheepish smile, stepped into the hallway. Regulus craned his neck around her—his brother was nowhere in sight.

"Sirius just called me to come over and stay with you. He said he was sorry he couldn't say anything, but he was pressed for time. He said you would…you'd _know_ why he had to run."

Her companion threw up his hands in disgust.

"Emergency?" He rolled his eyes. "He has a pressing engagement at the _theatre_."

* * *

 **Only one more chapter and this day (in the story) will be done. As always, reviews appreciated.**


	18. Chapter 18

_"_ _James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell_ — _also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much."_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 18**

* * *

The first lesson Narcissa could remember her father ever teaching her was that there was nothing Muggles did that wizards couldn't do _better_.

Certainly when one looked around the Orpheum Theatre ( _est. 1895_ ) one could see the truth in Cygnus Black's aphorism. Sometime in the previous century the great minds of magical architecture had noticed the growing theatre district in London's West End and determined they must have one of their own. None of the tawdry masses of Muggles who'd paid a small fortune of their own money to see cheap stage trickery would ever know of the palace just beneath their feet.

The _Orpheum_ —modeled after the Paris Opera House, the construction of which had taken nearly three years. The Black and Malfoy families had been patrons, and had been in attendance at the very first ballet performed on the stage.

 _Swan Lake._ A story about a jealous witch's curse—a tale as old as the one about the warlock and the miller.

Wizards did love their little jokes.

"Narcissa…when was the last time you heard from Regulus?"

Mrs. Malfoy looked up from her cocktail at her husband, across the the table—then sideways at Ms. Battancourt. She was toying with her olive and staring out into the middle distance with that distracted, dreamy look Narcissa thought very becoming.

In moderation, at least.

"Oh, I don't know…" She lifted up one perfectly manicured nail and examined it, idly. "I had a letter from him…last week sometime?"

Lucius looked around at his brother-in-law, who merely shrugged—and Rabastan, sitting on the far side of Rodolphus, who laughed nervously (he _always_ laughed nervously) and stammered out a few words to the same effect.

Lucius frowned.

"Did he mention when he was returning?"

" _Hopefully_ he'll be back in time for Evan's party."

Rodolphus's lip curled. _All but baring his teeth,_ Cissy thought, faintly disapproving.

"With a _fiancée_ in tow." Narcissa's brow creased. "Imagine, little Reggie! Who'd have thought _he'd_ get shackled straight out of school?"

"It's not a sure thing," Narcissa informed her brother-in-law, primly. Her cocktail stirrer lazily circled the bottom of her martini. "They might not suit. My mother doesn't think it will go through."

"Let's hope not—for Regulus's sake." Rodolphus grinned, wolfishly. "D'you think he'd even know what to _do_ with a girl, if he got his hands on one, or—does he need a diagram explaining how all the parts work?"

Narcissa pulled the stick out of her drink and snapped it down on the table.

"Rodolphus, _please_ —"

"Sorry, Cissy." He nudged his brother-in-law, still leering. "I believe I've offended your wife's delicate sensibilities, Lucius." He continued, voice lower, "You'd think with Bella for a sister she'd be used to it by now."

Lucius downed the rest of his drink with a single elegant swirl of the glass.

"I believe Narcissa is more concerned you might offend her friend Ms. Battancourt," he remarked, dryly. "Who, after all, doesn't yet know you, _or_ your particular brand of— _rustic humor_ well."

But Colette didn't seem to be paying much attention to their conversation, rustic or otherwise—Rodolphus's pointed jabs at his cousin-by-marriage did not stir her from her reverie, though the mention of her name did elicit a shy smile.

"I'm—not easily offended, I assure you," she said, politely, smiling at Rodolphus—who only leered back. He turned in the direction of Malfoy again.

"Why do you want to know when Reg will be back?"

"Oh…" Lucius drummed his fingers idly on the table. "There's something I have to ask him, that's all."

He and Rodolphus shared a meaningful look. Narcissa noticed this and frowned. She was curious—but also too shrewd to ask her husband in mixed company what he meant. Lucius never liked it when she got too 'curious' about certain aspects of his life.

Generally this arrangement suited her—but when her baby cousin was involved, she couldn't help but be a _little_ intrigued.

"It's a question only _he_ can settle to my satisfaction," he continued, lightly. "I hope he comes back soon, at any rate."

So did Narcissa. Colette had given up her attempts to make polite conversation with Rabastan Lestrange about halfway through the lobster thermidor—and Mrs. Malfoy, in all frankness, could not blame her.

She knew Madame Battancourt was exerting pressure on her only daughter to make herself agreeable to the younger Lestrange brother. She could even, on its face, understand why the Frenchwoman would think him a desirable connection for Colette—but Narcissa couldn't help but frown on the match. Her elder sister's marriage aside, Lestrange men were not, strictly speaking, to her taste. There was something a little _wild_ about the family—in spite of their centuries of good breeding, they remained unpolished and—in her opinion—uncivilized. They'd kept the savage roots—she supposed it came from all those first cousins marrying one another.

She'd always had the distinct impression _wildness_ had been Bella's appeal for Rodolphus.

And then there was Rabastan himself. Between the brothers, there was no doubt that the older had inherited the lion's share of charisma and personality. His younger brother, with nothing much to recommend him, had been left to orbit around Roddy's considerable gravitational pull. The best that could be said about Rabastan when comparing him to his elder brother was that he had less of a nasty streak than Rodolphus.

Of course, he'd also gotten—funny about women. Skittish and odd, ever since…

Well—in any case, he was _far_ too old for her.

Narcissa bit her lip. Yes—she'd decided. It would be much better for Regulus to come back home before Christmas— _without_ a fiancée. If there was one, of course she could handle it—but it would be much cleaner and simpler if it didn't get to that point.

The lights flickered on and off—there was a murmur of movement all around them, and the group stood up, abandoning their drinks and the lounge off the main lobby where they'd been idling away their time waiting for the beginning of the second act.

Colette moved through the sea of well-dressed witches and wizards like a ghost. She _should_ have been content—the plush velvet carpet, the ornamental dragon and griffin carvings whose ruby eyes glittered amidst the shadows beneath the enchanted torches that lit the magnificent front hall of the Orpheum theatre—all of these delights had the making of a exciting evening out. She dearly loved theatre and concerts, the violinist was superb, the concerto—sublime. If this had been what they did last night she would have thought it the greatest treat of the holiday, wonderful beyond all measure.

Her standards for 'excitement' had changed since last night.

How could a night at the opera compare to going to Kenwood House in the middle of the night on a flying motorbike—with _him_?

She ran her thumb over her clutch and scowled at the carpet. Even in his absence he was ruining her evening by being so—distracting!

Three letters had followed the first. One had been in the magazine she was handed at the hairdresser (how had he guessed they be there—did he know Narcissa's habits _that_ well? Or had Madame Black let it slip—on purpose?), then another at the restaurant where they'd lunched with Narcissa's _mère_ —and the final, stuck brazenly in the mirror of her bedchamber, discovered when she went back to change into her evening gown. _How_ he had placed it there Colette didn't even want to think about. She'd half expected Sirius to come crawling out from under the bed, grinning cheekily, eyes flashing with boyish humor.

Each were along the same line as the first—a demand to know for an update on her state of being, increasingly cajoling in tone. All had been unanswered, and would remain so.

It was for the best, but Colette was—uneasy. Maybe it would have been better to explain to him, at least a _little_ …

 _No. It's too dangerous. Remember what his mother said…_

"Come _along_ , Colette—it's going to start before we get back to our seats."

She looked up and around for the source of the call. Lost in her thoughts as she was, Colette and Mrs. Malfoy had become separated by a large group of country-bred witches and warlocks, up from the south (if accents could be trusted) for a day of shopping and entertainment. Spotting Narcissa's distinctive blonde head through the crowd, she attempted to circumnavigate the small crowd between them, when she found her path blocked.

" _Excuse moi_ ," she said, absently. "That is—pardon me, sir."

"You French?"

He was a squat, bandy-legged man with gingery hair, holding a stack of leaflets printed on very cheap paper.

"Ah— _oui._ " He made no move to allow her to pass, and instead squinted at her in a manner her mother would have considered the height of insolence.

"You want a souvenir, _mam'selle_?" The waved one in her face. "Got a special on programs. Seven sickles, s'very reasonable."

Colette forced a polite smile. The man's dress, the smell of pipe tobacco that lingered about him and his general furtive manner, all indicated that he was not actually supposed to be selling programs in the _foyer_ of the Orpheum.

"No, thank you." She took a wide step to the left. "I must get back—"

The barker peered at her, shrewdly—his bloodshot eyes taking in her full appearance at a glance—then grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her towards him.

"'ere, missy—" Colette's gasp of shock was muffled by his coat, filthy and an inch from her nose. "On the _'ouse_."

Before she could let out a scream, the man—whose breath in her ear stank of drink—thrust a piece of parchment into her fist and released her arm.

Stunned, Colette stumbled backwards. The gingery-haired drunk turned on his heel, as if on cue, and shuffled into the crowd of noisy wizards.

"Souvenir programs, gents? Ladies?" He grinned and winked at a churlish-looking witch with a pronounced wart on her chin. "Seven sickles, special deal, jus' for you—to commemorate the h'occasion—"

It was at that moment that an usher was alerted to this dubious character's presence (" _Oi! You! How many times do I have to tell you, you can't hawk that rubbish here?"_ ) and he was compelled to shove his programs into his enormous overcoat mid-transaction and disapparate on the spot.

The crowd, momentarily amused by the excitement, tittered—the wart-chinned lady loudly declaiming the scoundrel who had 'nicked her last galleon, the devil!'—and by the time the usher restored order Narcissa had disappeared.

Colette was left quite alone in the middle of the foyer with her crumpled note.

The surprise and alarm having warn off, she opened her hand and stared down at the ball of parchment clutched in her hand. Colette unfolded it gently, and the second she read the words haphazardly scrawled in the now extremely familiar handwriting—flushed red to the tips of her ears.

 _In the ladies'. Second stall from the right. Please come before some old biddy does._

She let out a very unladylike exclamation, and, grateful there was no one around who could understand French, took off like a shot in the direction of the ladies' powder room.

* * *

"What was all _that_ about?"

Orion's wife did not immediately answer. The witch glided backwards as he stepped out of the fireplace of Number Twelve's kitchen and began the process of helping him out of his cloak. It was a gesture so routine that they could do the steps without even thinking.

A dance.

"Pardon?" she asked, lightly, as she removed his coat. "I don't know what you mean."

He tapped his toe impatiently on the stone floor of the kitchen. Walburga pretended not to notice, instead focusing intently on removing a spare piece of lint from his sleeve.

"You know _exactly_ what I—you and the boy."

She ironed out the wrinkles in his cloak and folded it in front of her.

"What about Sirius and I?"

"At dinner you were—you were _baiting_ him."

Mrs. Black abruptly ceased fiddling with the buttons of her husband's cloak and looked up. Her eyes were overly bright—they reminded Orion of a magpie's.

"Baiting Sirius? _I_?" Walburga repeated, innocently. "Don't be ridiculous. What would I bait him about?"

He leaned against the mantle and scowled in the direction of the fire.

"Any number of things."

She frowned and furrowed her brow.

"What part of the conversation do you mean in _particular_?"

"When you were talking about that—that witch," He turned back to her—her face was hidden in the shadows. "That French girl."

The pause that followed was ominous.

"How could I _bait_ him about some girl he's never even met?"

Orion breathed in, slowly—felt his neck tightening, a tension not unlike the pressure one felt after touching a portkey.

"You couldn't," he muttered, quietly. "Of course you couldn't."

"Then _why_ would you suggest I had?"

The tension built with each word, like a violin whose strings are slowly being tightened. One more turn of the knob and she would snap.

"It makes no sense. Unless, of course…" Walburga said, silkily. "He _has_ met her before."

A sinking feeling of dread churned about in the pit of his stomach.

"Or is that another of my….' _womanish fancies',_ as you like to say?"

She stalked towards him—in the dark of the kitchen, still dressed in her black silk gown, she reminded Orion of a panther.

"That was what you called it, didn't you?" Her voice was deceptively sweet. "That idea I had last week—that Sirius Orion had somehow become an unregistered Animagus?"

He let out a long sigh—but she continued, mercilessly.

"And when I saw that dog you caught prowling about Malfoy Manor, and _happened_ to mention that I thought he resembled one of the Black hounds—you also called _that_ a womanish fancy, didn't you?"

"Walburga—"

" _Goodness_ me—!" The laugh was false, high-pitched—bordering on hysterical. "I have _so many_ of them, it's a wonder I can keep my head on straight."

She was trembling now, from head to foot _shaking_ with anger—a trap just waiting for him to move, even a little, so the bars would snap around his foot and ensnare him.

Orion closed his eyes, wearily.

 _Damn._

"Is there something you wished to say to me?"

Her eyes glittered strangely in the dim light of the kitchen. She merely watched him—the panther, stalking its prey, biding its time.

He would not play this game with her—not tonight.

" _Well_ then—if you're not going to speak, I'll leave you to your own devices. It's late." He nodded towards the door, straightening up—and cleared his throat. " _I_ am going to bed."

He made it three steps to the door.

"If you _skulk_ off to your dressing room _now_ , Orion Black—" Walburga hissed, coolly. "I shall have the elf move your belongings there tomorrow."

He froze at the door, then turned around, slowly. Walburga was waiting, predictably, for the reaction—to see how the hit had landed—more a cannon ball than rapier thrust. She wanted to anger her husband, as _she_ was angry, clearly—and this had done just the trick. Sirius hadn't sprung from nowhere, after all—he knew just where to strike for a reason.

He'd learned at his mother's feet.

"…Are you _threatening_ me, madam?"

She pursed her lips and clenched her wand in her hand. Not for the first time in his marriage did Orion wonder if he'd have to disarm her.

"You must think me a fool."

Three steps, four—she was only a foot away, now. He could see the veins in his hands—still so perfect and smooth, the skin stretched tightly over a clenched fist.

"Oh, I think many things of you, Walburga—" He laughed, humorlessly—perhaps she'd take a swing at him. "But never that."

"Well, you lied baldly to me in front of my own children—" She snapped back, voice waspish. "So either _you're_ the fool or _I_ am."

Damn. He leaned against the mantle.

"' _A womanish fancy'_ —" Walburga repeated the phrase, color high in her cheeks. "That was what you said. Right to my face. Tell me, Orion—was it a figment of my imagination when you dragged Sirius out of your father's birthday on a _lead_?"

Orion turned on his heel.

"Oh, for God's sake—how did you find out?" He swore under his breath. "Did _he_ tell you?"

"Of course he didn't!" She snorted. "You think just because I'm a _woman_ I'm some—some addle-brained, feather-in-the-head _idiot_ who can't figure things out for herself."

"For the love of—I _never_ said that."

She rounded on him, face furiously red.

"How long did you intend on keeping this a secret from me?"

Orion gripped the edge of the hearth—his fingers were pleasantly numb from the pressure, the skin a deathly white. In a perfect world she'd have never found out about it—alas! No such world existed. Even Orion had not counted on being able to keep such a secret indefinitely. All that putting it off—he'd been avoiding thinking about this moment as much as possible.

And it was far worse than he'd anticipated, even in his unconscious mind.

"It wasn't your concern."

She glowered at him.

"Not my concern! What _is_ my concern, if not you catching our son sneaking about a party in disguise, and then smuggling him out of the house _as a dog?"_

"How do you think _I_ felt, Walburga?" Orion demanded, his own temper flaring up—as only she could make it. "My father puts me on the trail of some damned gatecrasher he's gotten a tip-off about, I spend the whole damn evening on a wild Hippogriff chase, and when I finally corner the rascal—it turns out to be one of _your_ whelps!" He waved his arm furiously. "What would you have had me do, go and fetch you? The house was _crawling_ with people. You'd have been apoplectic and made a scene—in fact—" She flushed scarlet. "You _did_ make a scene. Only it was not, as you believed, in front of a _dog!_ "

To his immense pleasure, at _this_ Walburga had the sense to look embarrassed. She fidgeted with her hands and glared at the wall.

"If I had _known_ it was—Sirius Orion," she muttered, quietly. "I would…not have said those things."

"Are you certain of that, madam? I wonder if I don't think you're _glad_ for having said it. That you wouldn't have laid that line of accusation on me if he'd been standing straight and tall, as a man—rather than cowering under Abraxas Malfoy's desk with his _ears flat_."

Her lip trembled—and against all odds, Orion had a sharp stab of guilt.

"Don't trouble yourself over what he heard." He sighed, heavily. "It doesn't matter, anyway."

She made a noble attempt to hide it—but, damn it all, Walburga was close to tears.

"How can you _say_ that?"

"I doubt he had any illusions about our marriage left to dispel."

It was such a unaccountably melancholy thing for he of all men to say, that for a moment—just a moment—it seemed Walburga's attack had diminished, had lost its power. But then he let out that tremendous sigh of exhaustion, and he could feel the burning of a wound, when adrenaline and shock had worn off.

The pain had set in.

"If Sirius wasn't the one who told you he was there, how did you figure it out?"

She tilted her head and gave him one of her shocking put-down looks.

"Isn't it obvious?"

He shut his eyes, in the mode of all long-suffering husbands. Lord, it was going to be one of her infernal guessing games, was it? Well, if he was going to do the thing, a methodical approach would probably go best.

Return to the scene of the crime, wasn't that what they said?

"I assume my father's birthday was what you spoke to him about when you came to see him this morning."

His wife sniffed and walked over to the sink, turning her back to him.

"Among…other things."

Orion turned around. Even from behind, the way she held her shoulders—guilt hovered about her personage.

 _No._

" _What_ other things?" he demanded, sharply. "What _else_ could he have possibly done?"

She ran her fingertip over the edge of a lattice-patterned china cup, polished and drying on the rack.

"You'd be surprised what your son can get up to in only a few hours, when one's back is turned."

Something akin to a needle was surely stabbing Orion in the eye at this moment.

"What has he done?" Walburga picked the cup up and fiddled with the handle—made soft dickering noises—and he lost his temper. "Walburga—tell me what that wretch has done."

The tea cup dropped unceremoniously into the sink. The tinkle of breaking china punctuated an otherwise suffocating atmosphere.

"I don't think I _will!_ " She snapped, rounding on him. "Anyway—I promised him I wouldn't speak of it to you."

Her husband laughed—a strangled, involuntary chuckle that made Walburga see red.

"That is rich!" Her shoulders trembled with anger—rather more familiar and less discomforting than her tears. "Since when have _you_ ever kept a promise that didn't suit you?"

"Well—perhaps keeping this one does." She sniffed. "If you can have secrets with Sirius, why can't I?"

"It isn't at all the same—" His mind turns back to dinner, to the subject around which his wife and son's oh-so-entertaining dance had turned. "—It was the _girl_ who told you he was there, wasn't it? That damned French witch!"

Walburga pursed her lips, scrunched her nose—her eyes darted to the fire—all the typical signs that she was avoiding being caught out.

"I want her out of this house. Tonight."

Her eyes flew back to his face. They were suddenly steely.

" _That_ is out of the question."

Orion's face went purple. He drew himself up to his full height and approached her, by all accounts livid. Most any person who knew him at all—knew how rarely he lost his temper— might've been discomforted by the sight of him in what was commonly referred to as 'a rare rager'—but Mrs. Black, like Albus Dumbledore, knew she had nothing to fear—and merely watched the display impassively.

"' _Out of the question_ '?" Orion repeated, scathingly. "I will remind you that this is _my_ house, that I can have whoever I damn well please thrown out of it—and some foolish girl who prattles our secrets to any which woman who crosses her—"

"—It wasn't _any_ woman. It was _me_." She smoothed her skirt and looked up into his eyes, expression maddeningly calm. "Believe me, she didn't want to spill your secrets any more than she did Sirius Orion's. In the end she didn't have much of a choice."

" _Why not_?"

"She felt herself…in my power." She arched one perfect brow. "If _you_ were caught breaking into your chaperone's house in the middle of the night after spending an evening galavanting about Hampstead Heath with her son, I imagine you would also feel an obligation to be honest."

The words came out so causally, so emotionlessly—that for a moment Orion thought he'd hallucinated them.

"He did _what_?"

"Took her out last night, after we left the flat—after dinner," Walburga said, matter-of-factly, as if her husband's apoplectic fit was no matter. "By prearrangement, I gathered. I caught Sirius Orion attempting to boost our guest back up into her room via a _drainpipe_."

Orion sputtered something utterly incoherent, even to him.

"By a—he—wha—"

"—I _believe_ that foolish boy thought he was doing your work—luring her out after hours, hoping I'd catch her in the act and send her packing."

 _That_ —Orion thought, his brain methodically turning the idea over. _Was the most foolhardy, risky, and idiotic plan he'd ever—_

"Then why the devil was _Sirius_ there?"

"I'd guess he took pity on her." She shrugged. "Unfortunately, the original plan was the one that worked, and _he_ got caught as well. Lucky girl—if she had been on her own I would have had her sent back in disgrace, for sure."

Orion didn't have time to wonder at the unaccountably nonchalant way his wife relayed these events to him. He was ready to spring into action.

"Give me back my cloak."

It was still folded neatly and pressed against her side—she clutched protectively to her bosom.

"Why do you need it?" Walburga asked, suspiciously.

"Because—I'm going over to that flat, of course!" She clutched it tighter, stepping backwards and skillfully avoiding him wrenching it by force from her arms. "Of all the—Walburga, if you think I'm going to let him get away with this—"

"You are going to spoil _everything_." She rolled her eyes and made an exasperated noise. "Besides, you'd be wasting your time if you went over now! I'm sure he's not even there."

He ceased his half-hearted attempts to wrest his cloak from her arms and gaped.

"What do you mean?"

"He'll have left for the Orpheum by now, of course!" She hissed, impatiently. "He'll want to see if he can catch her during the intermission. Why do you think I let him sleep through dinner?"

He stared at his wife as if she were insane.

"I…cannot imagine."

"Well, I knew he needed his wits about him! And I'm sure he didn't sleep well at all last night—but now that he knows she received his letter asking to meet in Hogsmeade tomorrow, and that she has a very good chance at doing so, he'll be more eager than ever for an answer."

"Walburga, have you lost complete control of your senses? I do not have the faintest idea what you're talking about."

She threw her hands up in disgust.

"Well, why would I explain these things to you?" His eyes widened in understanding. "You made your feelings _quite_ clear yesterday evening—if you're not going to take an interest in the matter of your family's future, you can't blame me when you aren't included in—"

"—In your harebrained scheme to marry him off?" He finished for her, sarcastically. "Of all the womanish, ridiculous fantasies you'd could have gotten into your head—trying to arrange a marriage for him with the provincial French witch who caught him spying at his own grandfather's birthday party takes the cake." Both of her cheeks flushed bright scarlet. "You have outdone yourself, madam."

"At least I'm _doing_ something—" She trembled. "At least I _care_. The way you act and talk, it's as though you don't want Sirius back at all."

Orion recoiled, as if he'd been stung.

"That is _absurd_."

"Is it? You're pushing him away with both hands."

At this final insult hot anger overtook him. After all the effort exerted—every possible stratagem to box Sirius in with the entail, the threats, blackmail and subterfuge—how like her to take it all for granted, to only see what could go wrong.

How like her to only see his failure.

"He is a grown man, not a child," Orion sneered. "And _I_ am too busy keeping him alive to bother with coddling his fragile ego!"

"You put a _muzzle_ on our _son!_ "

" _He deserved it_!"

The words—bellowed, as he had never bellowed in all the fifty years he'd lived in this house—echoed against the walls of the cavernous kitchen. Husband and wife, both breathing heavily, each retreated to their own corners of the boxing ring to nurse their wounds—Walburga to the old wooden stool in the corner, Orion to the fireplace. The Blacks spent a minute recovering in silence, considering one another across the brief distance and endless space between them.

Mrs. Black recovered first.

"If Sirius runs away again." Walburga rose from her stool. "I will _never_ forgive you."

Her husband received this threat with a calm that belied the emotions he had always taken care to bury so deeply.

"How is _that_ a change?" Orion asked, coldly. "You never forgave me for the first time."

She gasped—an oddly muted sound, after the crescendo of shouts.

" _That_ is what you're angry about," Orion continued, in a flat voice. "It's nothing to do with any lies I've told you, then or now. You blame _me_ for our son running off."

Three gasps—sharper, staccato, and it was with a painful lurch in his stomach that Orion realized they were sobs.

"You have been resentful, and angry, and _stewing_ for over three years because you think that when Sirius ran away I didn't go after him because _my father_ told me not to."

She blinked and turned her face away.

"I never said—"

"—You didn't need to," he interrupted her, softly. "You're my wife. I knew what you thought—that Arcturus was glad to see the back of our son, only too eager to cut him loose—and I, like the spineless fool you have sometimes taken me for, allowed him to trample me underfoot—that I obeyed him, as I always do, without question."

"Isn't that—" Her voice caught. "Isn't that how it was?"

"My father wanted me to go after him." Her mouth dropped open in shock—her wand—the wand he had never, in the half century he'd known her, _ever_ seen her lose her grip on—slipped uselessly out of those delicate fingers and clattered to the floor. "I do not think his pride could take such a public insult as the youngest heir to the Black family abandoning us—whatever _else_ he thought of our son. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was to find Sirius, drag him back to this house—by force, if necessary—and not allow him to leave it again until he was 'well in hand'."

There had been a time that Orion had hoped the day that he admitted this to her—the day the last of the scales fell from her eyes—would never come.

"Then why _didn't_ you?" She cried, sounding small and broken. "How could you have—how could you have let him go?"

He didn't know—or…perhaps he did, and he was too afraid to admit the truth to her.

"A man has his pride," Orion replied, grimly. "And I know a lost cause when I see one."

Her nostrils flared—and then the dam broke, and the tears that had been threatening to fall spilled over.

At the sight of Walburga crying—right when he would have liked to gather her in his arms—he turned back to the fireplace, and allowed her the dignity of hiding it. In a moment of weakness a week before she had allowed him to comfort her while she cried.

Orion knew he wasn't likely to get that chance again.

"I wish you would…at least admit it."

The tremble in her voice was too much. Orion risked it—he turned back around, only to find her right in front of him. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and for the first time he could remember she wasn't trying to hide it from him.

"Admit what?"

"That you missed him, too."

He sighed and trailed one hand against her cheek.

"He's my firstborn son, Walburga."

"Did you or did you _not_ miss him?"

He rolled his eyes.

"He is the most exasperating boy who has ever lived, and rather like his mother—extremely fond of giving me grief." He smiled—trying to coax one out of her. "Believe me, Walburga—I have no intention of letting him go again."

No longer furious—but still irritated—she crossed her arms and scowled at him. The obstinate look reminded Orion painfully of Sirius.

"He won't stay unless you show him you want him to."

"As regards your eldest, I have other concerns at present." One last brush of her cheek, and he lowered his hand again. "I suppose it _has_ occurred to you that he didn't come to Papa's part for his own benefit."

"Just as _you_ weren't up in Scotland to see Horace Slughorn."

He resisted the urge to point out that she wasn't going up to Scotland to see Slughorn any more than he had.

"Don't worry about that," he ordered, brusquely. "It isn't something you need to bother with."

His wife snorted.

"You always treat me like an idiot," she mumbled, blinking aside the troublesome moisture that had gotten in her eyes—he held up a handkerchief, which she discreetly took from his hand to wipe her face. "A foolish woman who isn't capable of understanding matters more complicated than fashion."

"On the contrary—I think it would insult your intelligence to explain it." She blew her nose and peaked up at him. "You know _damn_ well why he was there."

Her eyes glinted dangerously—but, Orion noted, with some satisfaction—she didn't argue with him. With nearly a day to think on it—and no doubt a very revealing private audience with their son, not to mention the speculations his sister would have brought to bear—even _she_ could not have feigned ignorance as to why their son would have sneaked into his grandfather's birthday party in the guise of someone else.

But—small mercy!—she could at least be counted on not to stick her wand in where that subject was concerned. He knew Walburga would not ask for particulars—she was like a racehorse with the blinders up.

This suited him well enough. He wasn't ready to tell her the whole truth—and she could only lose by knowing more than she needed to, at this point.

"I hope you at _least_ told that meddler off, when you were up at Hogwarts."

She snatched her wand up from the ground and didn't see how Orion rolled his eyes.

"Oh, yes—I gave _Albus Dumbledore_ the what-for. You can imagine what an effect my strictures have on him."

She nodded, missing the sarcasm in her husband's voice entirely—which made him smile.

"Quite so!" She agreed, haughtily. "The nerve of that man, to send _our_ child amongst his own family like—like an outlaw."

Orion stifled a guffaw at this particular description of Sirius's antics—thinking to himself how much their eldest son would appreciate it.

"Oh, you can thank your wretched _younger_ son for that."

He took unaccountable pleasure in the look of shock on his wife's face.

" _What_?"

"He has been sending letters to Albus Dumbledore behind out back. _He_ sends the information, the older one acts on it." She crumpled his pocket handkerchief in her fist. "We have, against all odds, managed to produce a pair of revolutionaries, my dear."

His wife did not seem to appreciate the humor of this.

"That—but that is impossible." Walburga goggled at him as if he were deranged. "Regulus would _never_ disobey me!"

"He did. I told you've we've underestimated him—though even _I_ did not realize how much."

Orion frowned. Between them, against all odds—Regulus was proving to be the problem he was less equipped to handle. Like this conversation, it was impossible to keep putting it off.

His wife took the news of their youngest's treachery with even less equanimity

"You are remarkably calm about all this!" Walburga exclaimed, indignantly. "I wonder that you aren't thinking more about how you're going to stop the two of them."

"Stop them?" He laughed. "How, pray tell, do you I suggest I do that?"

"Perhaps you could put some fear into your sons, for once."

"What would you have me do—beat them?" Orion asked, blandly. "It wouldn't work. Regulus would take the punishment meekly, then go right back to doing what he has been, and as for Sirius…" He sighed. "He would welcome it. Gives him yet another excuse to hate me."

His wife rolled her eyes.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic. He doesn't _hate_ you." Absently she smoothed the wrinkles in his shirtfront. "He just…doesn't understand why you do the things you do, and finds it all very frustrating."

"Yet another thing he has in common with his mother."

"Well, you're hardly _encouraging_ of him."

He glanced down at her left arm—under it his cloak sill remained clutched firmly to her bosom.

"You can stop guarding that thing like it's the lost shroud of Merlin. I've lost my stomach for going out."

Her grip loosened somewhat, but she did not hand it over to him.

"Why is that?"

"I won't do anything to drive a _wedge_ between you."

"…Including interfering with my plans?"

He narrowed his eyes and shrugged.

"I'd have to know what they were before I made that promise," he remarked, mildly—and then, to his wife's shock and anger, crossed briskly to the door that lead up to the upper hall.

"Where is it you think _you're_ going?" Walburga demanded, indignantly, following at his heels like an overwrought terrier.

He turned and smiled.

"I am _going_ to procure myself a drink. If I am expected to listen to you soliloquize on one of your infamous schemes, I will have a libation while I do so." He smirked. "And so will you."

She flushed.

"Orion Black, are you trying to get me tight?"

"That depends—will your recitation of your plan to ensnare our firstborn be truncated in any way by your intoxication?"

" _Orion_!"

"I shall get you one, regardless. Port?"

"This is a very serious business—"

"—Sherry, then."

* * *

" _Careful,_ dear!" A woman with voluminous red hair called to Colette as she pushed past her and through the door. "The second act is about to begin—best not dawdle!"

Colette let the door to the ladies' powder room swing shut behind the would-be scold without replying to this unsolicited advice—though she thought she heard the distinct sound of an annoyed huff through mahogany.

She had been the last of the stragglers spotted leaving the lavatory. Colette had noticed a crowd of ladies collectively moving from that general vicinity in the direction of their seats—all freshly primped and powdered, very eager to see the world famous violinist perform part of a concerto. Or was it a symphony? She hadn't been able to read a word of the program, so distracted was she.

She dipped her head down and peaked beneath the stalls, just to be sure.

All empty.

Or at least—by all _appearances_ empty.

The young French witch stalked past the row of sinks and the cosmetics table—where a bottle of perfume was still feebly spritzing into the air—to the back row of stalls, closest to the line of smart, diamond-paned windows.

Colette stopped in front of the second stall to the right and let out the breath she'd been holding slowly, trying to center herself. The discomforting flutter in her stomach was difficult to ignore.

 _You were going to tell him off, remember?_

She stared at the innocent wooden door, identical to all the others. It was difficult to remember the sharp words that had first come to mind when she had read that impudent note, now that her righteous anger had burned off, leaving behind only an irritating feeling of _anticipation_.

Colette took another deep breath and flung the door open. Her heart seemed to drop into her stomach.

It was…empty.

Dumbfounded, relieved—secretly disappointed—the girl stared at the uninhabited toilet stall, crestfallen. No stranger to disappointment, Colette was struck by the stray thought that the sting was all the worse because she'd dared to get her hopes up.

 _This is why I don't do that._

She pulled her head back and looked to her left and right, as if she thought she might've been mistaken—was there someone else in here, still? Had he fled? Or had it all been a horrible joke—then, seeing no sign of other intruders, and because Colette's curiosity never failed to draw her into inadvisable scrapes, she took one step inside the stall to get a closer look—

"I'm afraid this one's taken."

Colette let out a cry of surprise and jumped in the air. A handsome, grinning face appeared in front of her.

A body followed after the head wearing the same Muggle dress—the leather jacket and denim trousers that Colette found unseemly (they showed so much—and she couldn't help but look, since it _was_ there.) Sirius pulled the silvery cloak—was it an invisibility cloak?—off of himself, laughing at his own cleverness. Colette, now embarrassed at how she had so gullibly fallen for his boyish trick, crossed her arms and glowered at her companion.

"That was _not_ amusing."

"It was—just _a little_." He hopped down off the toilet seat where he'd been perched. "Not bad, right?" He held out the cloak for her to see. "Quite a daring infiltration. It's like a fortress, this place."

The wayward Black heir's eyes fell on the letter she still had clutched in her hand, and his grin turned rueful.

"I see you got _this_ note, at least."

Colette colored and crushed it into her pocket, quickly.

"How could I help it, when you have these—these _nefarious_ characters accost me and thrust things in my hands?" He laughed and leaned against the barrier between the toilets. "Who _was_ that man?"

"An interesting study for one of your stories." She let out a quiet 'ha!' of disbelief. "His name is Mundungus Fletcher, and you have him pegged quite well."

Ms. Battancourt's mouth turned into a small 'o.'

"You mean he is—a criminal?"

There was an unladylike swoop in her stomach at the thought. Her companion must've seen something of this on her face, for his smile turned knowing.

"He's a bit of a crook, yes—" Sirius conceded, reluctantly. "—But a dead useful one. I hadn't realized this was one of his spots—ran into him outside—it took a little convincing to get his help, believe me, he's not exactly thrilled with me at the moment. But if I hadn't, well—how would you have known I was in here?" He dusted off his jeans with surprising elegance. "And _then_ where would we be? You'd be listening to some fossilized cellist right now. _Far_ less interesting."

She fixed him with what she hoped was her haughtiest look—Monsieur Black the younger's eyes sparkled in the most irritating fashion.

"Is _he_ the sort of person you are accustomed to consorting with?" Colette asked, doing a passing impression of Narcissa—but he only grinned wider, and she knew that he could see the act she was putting on for what it was.

What was the point in pretending to disapprove, when she was _really_ annoyed with him for taking so long to come to see her?

"I could do worse for myself."

"I hardly think _that_ is very likely when—"

A sharp knock at the door interrupted them mid- _tête-à-tête_ —Colette, panicking, instinctually stepped forward and straight into her much taller companion—who, equally surprised to suddenly find an armful of young woman in front of him, pulled Colette inside the cramped space before slamming the stall door shut and flinging the invisibility cloak over the two them.

" _Quiet_ ," Sirius mouthed. Colette froze, petrified—her face just two inches from his. He must've been able to feel the heat radiating off of her face, at this proximity. He winked at her.

" _…_ _Colette?"_ A voice familiar to them both—but with such different associations that it elicited smile from one and a theatrical shudder from the other—called out. "Darling, are you in here?"

 _"_ _If you don't say anything,"_ he muttered, pulling a face, " _Maybe she'll shove off."_

She trod on his foot.

"Yes—I am here, Narcissa! In the back—" She called out, over Sirius's muttered protests, and pulled the cloak off of them both. "Second stall from the right!"

The _click-clack_ of heels on the ceramic tiles indicated the slow approach of Mrs. Malfoy. Sirius leapt up onto the toilet seat and crouched there with the agility and lightness of step of a panther. Colette thought he might've had some consideration for her nerves and put the cloak back on so she could at least _pretend_ like she hadn't just been shut up in a toilet with a young man, but he seemed to find grinning cheekily at her more amusing than discretion.

"The show has started, dear—we have to get back at our seats, or the ushers will kick up a fuss."

"I'll be—I'll be along in a minute."

She was just outside the stall now. Out of the corner of her eye Colette glimpsed Sirius disappear from sight.

"Are you quite well?"

She opened up the stall—thought about closing it behind her, except that might make it look like she was hiding something.

"Yes, I…."

"If you don't want to sit next to Rabastan, I can tell him to switch seats with me."

Colette's face fell.

"What do you—do you mean?"

"Oh, come now. You're bored to tears." Narcissa examined her perfectly manicured nails. "He's the dullest conversationalist I know—it's been showing on your face all night."

Ms. Battancourt was very glad indeed that her back was to the spot her erstwhile companion was hiding, so he couldn't see the expression of profound embarrassment on her face.

"No—it wasn't that—" She protested, feebly. "Really, he's very nice—and, very interesting, I think—"

"—You were trying to talk to him about _books_ , Colette," Narcissa interrupted—sounding amused. " _That_ was your first mistake. Lestranges are not the 'intellectual' types. More—brawn than brain. If you want the bookish type, I can help you there."

Colette timidly returned her smile.

"Shall we…?"

She moved her elegant blond head in the direction of the door. Was it Colette's imagination, or did she hear the faint sound of impatient fidgeting in the stall behind.

"I have my—you know—" She lowered her voice to a murmur. "It's _that_ time."

Narcissa wrinkled her nose sympathetically.

"Oh—well, I'm sorry. I don't miss that." She patted her on the arm. "Do you want me to wait, or—?"

"No! No, please—I would hate for you to miss the second act—I will return to you very soon, I promise."

And after further assurances that she would return to her seat and very entertaining conversation with one Rabastan Lestrange, Colette managed to convince her friend to go back to her seat. She had the sense that Narcissa cared for the Lestranges almost as little as her friend, but the reminder of dear Lucius's presence got her to leave, again.

Colette breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the door swung shut behind Narcissa.

"So—Rabastan not doing if for you, eh?"

She turned around, expression furious, to find him removing the silvery cloak and tucking it into his bag.

"By the way—'more brawn than brain' is Narcissa Black speak for 'thicker than a post.'"

She didn't even crack a smile—his own cheerful aspect faltered.

" _What_ are you doing here?" Colette seethed.

"Meeting you, of course."

"This is the _ladies' powder room_!"

"I know." He stuck his hands in his pocket and looked around. "I always wondered what it looked like in here. Do they always have the perfume bottles out, or is that just for my benefit?"

He dropped the boyish grin and adopted a more serious expression.

"I was worried about you. You didn't reply to any of my letters—" Sirius's eyes shone with some indiscernible but passionate emotion. "I had to check and see if you were alright."

Colette held up her arms and dropped a sarcastic curtsey.

"Well, now you have seen me," she sniffed, coldly. "So your—how does the expression go?—your conscience can be clear."

"Colette—"

"—Now, if you'll _excuse_ me, monsieur—" She turned on her heel and marched defiantly towards the door. "I must return to the company of my friend, Narcissa— _your_ cousin—" She drew out the word. "And the concert, after which we will return to _your_ family's house, where, before retiring for bed, I will bid goodnight to _your_ mother and _your_ father."

Sensing that his smile was only going to go so far in smoothing the ruffled feathers of his understandably miffed new companion, the young wizard adopted a more solemn expression.

"I'm…sensing a bit of a theme, here," Sirius remarked, deftly stepping in front of her when she reached the door. "Will you be eating out of _my_ fruit bowl tomorrow at breakfast?"

"You will be lucky if I do not throw it at _your_ head!"

"Oh, come on, Colette—"

"I did not give you permission to call me by my Christian name, _monsieur_."

He held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"Alright, alright—I get the idea." Sirius smiled, ruefully. "Somehow, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot." She murmured some unintelligible French under her breath. "Why don't we start over—introductions?"

He held out his hand to her, very solemnly.

"My name is Sirius Black, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. And you, mademoiselle…are…?"

"Irene Vanksdatter," she supplied, wrathfully. "That is my name."

He struggled to keep a straight face.

"Irene…Vanksdatter?" He repeated, trying to keep a straight face. Colette nodded. "Well, _Irene_ —it's very nice to meet you. You know, you're a dead-ringer for a friend of mine—goes by the name of Colette Battancourt. Do you know her?"

"I'm her cousin," Colette invented, and she bit her lip to hide the smile. "From—Finland."

"Cousin from—Finland, eh?" Colette's mouth twitched. "Well, you seem to be in a better mood than she is. She's been freezing me out all day, you know—when I know for a fact she read at _least_ one of my letters, when it was delivered to the house this morning."

She forgot she was supposed to be angry.

"How do you know that?"

He cocked an eyebrow.

"A little owl told me." Sirius leaned back on the door, slumping his shoulders and looking quite chagrined. "You—you do _know_ I was going to tell you the truth, right?"

She picked at a stray thread of her gown.

"In fact, I was right about to, when—"

"When your mother caught us outside the house. I remember." She sighed. "I don't think I will ever be able to forget _that._ "

He shoved his hands into his pockets and pushed off the door.

"It wasn't my fault, though—that was a complete fluke. She just happened to be staring out the window and spotted us." Colette made a little 'hm' noise of skepticism, and he stepped towards her. "It could have happened to _anyone_!"

Her face softened. Ignoring him all day—had had a real effect on Sirius, and despite knowing full well that she had done it not to punish him, but out of her natural good sense and a phobia of intrigue, she found herself surprisingly moved.

"I _was_ trying to get you in without getting caught—you believe me, don't you?"

He was so close that Colette thought he might grasp her by the shoulders. The thought was exciting and terrifying—it would probably be best to put him out of his misery, lest he attempt it.

"…Yes, I believe you." She folded her arms in front of her chest. "Perhaps I just expected you to know your own mother's habits better."

She flitted over to one of the sinks where a magical compact was still twisting little feminine implements around bottles of cosmetic potions. Sirius followed her, but remained at a safe distance from the makeup table.

"I _told_ you she had a dreadful temper."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Colette said, her voice soft.

"Better than anyone." He shook his head. "I've had rotten luck the last few days. Getting caught by her last night, and—"

"—By your father, the night before?"

He ran his fingers through his fringe and sighed. Colette considered telling him his father's advice to her the night of the party, then thought better of it. He didn't seem in a good enough temper to take it.

"That was, of course, partly _your_ doing." Sirius caught her eye in the mirror and perked up. "I feel better now, having seen you—much better. I was worried she might've—"

"Might've what?"

"—Scared you out of your wits." Sirius brightened. "You seem alright, though. Not too shaken up. I'm impressed—not many witches could survive a tussle with my mother and come out no worse for the wear. Whatever you said to her, it did the trick."

She met his gaze—and found, amidst his concern—an honest, frank admiration.

She buried her head face in her hands.

"You must think me _such_ a fool."

There was a long pause—he exhaled slowly and quietly.

"Why would I think _that_?" Sirius asked, gently.

"For—for not realizing."

The words came out muffled. Colette heard the sound of footsteps. Sirius sidled next to her and stopped. Their shoulders didn't touch, but—just as she had in the stall, she could feel his warmth. Had he run in here under that invisibility cloak, darted in between fine old biddies leaving the loo, or did he just burn hot?

"I do not." She peaked between her fingers. "I thought it was… _nice_."

"You did?"

"Yes. I wasn't on the level with you, exactly—and you had no reason to think I wasn't—a family friend. It's a nice change, to be taken at face value."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone in my family is always…looking for an ulterior motive. Assuming some angle. But _you're_ not like that."

No, she was a naive little idiot who didn't understand the world, Colette thought, watching the play of pensive and distracted emotions on his handsome face.

For whatever reason, Sirius Black didn't seem to mind.

Colette wasn't about to argue with him.

"Now that the shock's worn off, you have to admit….fun, wasn't it?" She pursed her lips and dropped her hands onto the table. "Come on, you had a good time."

"I will admit to nothing of the kind," she said, primly—but her dimple peeped out. "I don't know what I was thinking, going out—I must've been out of my head."

Sirius showed little remorse at the temporary insanity that had plagued them both.

"So—why the silent treatment?" Her smile dropped. "And what about tomorrow? I've heard you've been invited up to Scotland to meet the famous Horace Slughorn himself. Can you fit me into your busy schedule, once your finished with that puffed-up old walrus?"

A ringlet of her hair had fallen out of the sweeping updo—she had not let Narcissa do it for her tonight, so it was far less tidy—and she twisted it around her finger, a nervous habit that betrayed the anxiety she was desperate to conceal.

"I just…do not think it would be a good idea for us to see each other again."

Sirius's gray eyes widened.

"Why not?"

"Why not—because we were caught!" She exclaimed, indignantly. "We might be caught again!"

"So?" He shrugged in the most maddeningly careless way. "The risk is what makes it fun—besides—what about our agreement? I was going to show you the real Britain."

"That was a silly bet I made when I was light in the head."

"You didn't have _that_ much to drink."

In spite of everything, Colette found his boyish enthusiasm infectious.

"I can see the castle with Narcissa and your mother just fine."

"You could," he conceded, with a grin. "You'd enjoy it more with me, though."

Colette couldn't argue with him—he was absolutely right. She would enjoy his company more. Mrs. Black must've realized that everything would be harder for her for that very reason.

He sensed the general direction of her thoughts.

"Look—if you're worried about _her, catching us_ or _finding out…"_ Colette blanched. _That is not at all what I'm worried about._ "Don't be. Even if she suspects—she'll _never_ confront you. She doesn't want anyone to know about me—and anyway, she's currently doing the great, forgiving, magnanimous lady routine. Perfect time to sneak away for a little tour of the secret passages in and out of the castle."

He must've realized how to peak her curiosity, for when he saw Colette's face light up he smiled back and gently pressed his hand against her shoulder. A shiver went up her spine.

"You seem to enjoy taking _insensé_ risks, monsieur," Colette pointed out, archly. "Are you a thrill-seeker by nature, or do I—bring this out in you?"

He leaned against the sink and cocked his head. She could see in his eyes he had not forgotten saying much the same thing to her the night before.

"This is not about _me_. This is about your education and—edification," Sirius intoned, solemnly. "I refuse to let your entire view of the faculty be skewed by that old windbag Sluggy."

She smiled.

"Will you introduce me to _your_ head of house instead?"

He pulled a face.

"God, no! Hopefully she's decamped to the highlands for the holidays and we're well shot of her. She'd fill your head with all sorts of stories about me—every one gross slander, but she's cunningly direct—you'd believe them, and it'd turn you against me."

"So then—it is not _her_ that you are meeting at the castle?" She asked, innocently—a little too innocently. "For your—appointment?"

Sirius turned away from the mirror. She watched his back, the way he scrunched up the shoulders—and frowned.

"My appointment is with someone… _very_ impressive." He scuffed his boot against the tile, and looked up at the ceiling. "If you come and meet me in the village before, I _may_ even introduce you."

"Will you _also_ tell me why you were at the party, and how you got away, and why you lied to me about who you are?"

He let out a sigh of annoyance and scowled. Colette found she preferred Sirius Black when he was like _this_ to when he was attempting to charm—not that she wasn't susceptible to the latter mode, but she thought the former much more his natural self, and it was _that_ side that she found herself most intrigued by.

"You're a tough customer. Yeah, I may answer _one_ of those exceedingly impertinent questions, if you turn up. Depends on how I feel." He eyed her a little warily. "You've heard the expression about curiosity and cats, haven't you?"

Dozens of times, but the warning had long since ceased to have an affect on her behavior. Besides, she didn't think rudeness was really something that bothered _him_ all that much—and he certainly didn't share Narcissa or her parents' ideas about how women shouldn't ask questions.

But all the same, he did have the air of mystery about him.

"Will you start answer my questions _truthfully_?"

He grumbled something unintelligible and rooted around in his coat pocket for a cigarette.

"What I told you that night was— _mostly_ —true."

Colette crossed her arms and raised both eyebrows.

"Monsieur and Madame Black did not seem like a mama and papa who have not seen their son in three years," she pointed out, dryly.

"I said ' _mostly_ '!" Sirius gave up on his quest for the elusive fag and turned on his heel. "There's no time to get into all that now. Look, what it comes down to is _this_ —do you think you can manage to slip away from Cissy and my mother tomorrow, or don't you?"

Her heart fluttered—and not in the romantic way of stories—a kind of frantic beating, like the wings of a bird, caught in a snare.

"Yes." Her utter inability to deceive, rearing its ugly head once more. "I—should be able to manage it."

 _Your mother would not have it any other way._

He lifted his arms, triumphantly.

"So then—all that's left is for you to agree to go with them."

He should _not_ have been allowed, she decided, firmly. It wasn't fair. That smile…hadn't Mrs. Black said it herself?

 _Could charm the scales off a dragon…_

"Monsieur Black…"

"Sirius," he corrected, cheerfully. "You're not going to make me stand outside Grimmauld Place and serenade you tonight, are you?"

Colette reluctantly smiled.

"Will you be bringing that contraption of yours?"

"Elvira? No—after last night I've hidden her away for safekeeping. Don't like to, erm—tempt fate, if you know what I mean."

"Do you mean, 'provoke your mother'?" Colette shook her head—another stray ringlet fell onto her forehead—she blew it out of her eyes with an unladylike snort. "I wonder if there isn't a part of you _that wishes_ to be caught by her."

The girl had meant it at as a joke, but when she saw the stricken look that flashed across his face, Colette wondered if she hadn't accidentally stumbled upon the truth. He rubbed the side of his face and tilted his head, taking on a momentarily puzzled look.

"Do you _really_ not want to go?"

Colette wilted. It was when he lost his bravado, the cock-of-the-walk braggartry, that she was most susceptible to Sirius Black—and right now he looked positively lost.

"It's just—I thought we had a good time last night, harrowing end of the evening aside—but if you really _don't_ want to come…" Sirius trailed off, all uncertainty. For some reason he seemed to find the spritzing perfume bottle fascinating, for he was looking there—at the mirrors, the door—anywhere but in Colette's direction. "I don't know—I just thought—you'd…enjoy it."

It occurred to her, as she watched him restively pace between the sinks, that he had probably never experienced a girl turn down the chance to spend two seconds with him, let alone an clandestine afternoon, and his moody befuddlement might be explained by inexperience in this area. It gave Colette an unexpected feeling of power, a giddy tingle in her stomach.

And also guilt, because she wanted to come with him—just not under these particular circumstances,

He looked up at her—eyes suddenly narrowed.

"My mother didn't _do_ anything to you, did she?"

"No—no, of course not," Colette replied, a little too quickly. She forced herself to look down at the crepe flowers on her gown—it was so ugly and old-fashioned—he must've been thinking that, too—how had she let her Auntie convince her to buy this? "Perhaps I simply have less courage than you think I do."

He shook his head firmly.

"I doubt _that_ very much."

There was the distant sound of applause—the end of the movement? Or had she managed to dicker away the whole show arguing with him? These snatches of moments seemed like vignettes in another person's life entirely.

It was a very exciting, very romantic life, for one thing. And a life full of daring risks…

"If I came… _if_ —" Colette hesitated. "—Where would we meet?"

His face lit up like a boy's on Christmas morning.

Another wave of guilt came—but this was tempered by excitement, and the embarrassing soaring feeling in her stomach at the stray thought that she had not disappointed him after all.

In the end, she was _that_ stupid.

"Don't worry about that. I'll find you, trust me."

There was the sound of movement—stirring—a hundred witches and wizards applauding. It seemed too early for the show to be over. Colette already had a list of excuses to tell Narcissa running through her head—she would probably have to admit she found Rabastan grating, to explain why she'd been done this long.

At least _that_ was true.

"Clapping between movements? The standards here have certainly dropped since the last time I attended this theatre."

"When was that?" Colette asked, in barely more than a whisper.

"I was fifteen. A truly dreadful production of _Macbeth_. I skived off to the pub above us sometime during act three. Walburga was livid, believe me." He looked around at the Edwardian high-ceilings, suddenly wistful. "Said she'd never take me again. Personally, I always wanted to get banned flat-out, but I never figured out how to do it." Sirius scratched his chin, dolefully. "When you come from a family like mine, it's difficult to get banned from a place like this."

"Why is that?"

"I _think_ my great-grandfather paid for it to be built." He looked around, his contempt obvious. "Bit over-the-top, wouldn't you say?"

Colette was prevented from asking more by the sound of the applause petering out. This was the opportune moment for her to return to her seat, and they both knew it, but at the moment of truth, neither seemed to know how to say goodbye.

Colette was caught by the irrational urge to ask him if he could take _her_ to the pub above them right now.

"Who are you here with, besides Cissy and Rabastan?"

"Narcissa's husband and her brother-in-law."

A shadow crossed over his face.

"Didn't _Madame_ Lestrange want to join you?"

Narcissa's elder sister—Rodolphus's wife. Colette had never met her, though the references to her in conversation were frequent and—odd.

"She didn't come."

"She wasn't at the party, either." The shadow seemed to lengthen—something dark and impenetrable flickered in his eyes. "Bella must've developed a weak constitution since the last time I saw her. She never _used_ to get ill."

Just as quickly the strange melancholy passed.

"I should really—I mean, you should…" His voice faltered. "Tomorrow, then?"

Colette nodded, suddenly very depressed at the prospect of returning to her seat.

He pulled out his invisibly cloak, then hesitated.

"You're…not afraid of dogs, are you?"

* * *

"Lily, darling—have you seen my cloak?"

Lily Potter looked up from the knitting patterns she'd been perusing to her husband, who'd wandered into the sitting room, rubbing the back of his dark head and wearing (rather dutifully, she thought) the bright green practice jumper she'd attempted to knit for him. The right sleeve was so long James had rolled it up to his elbow.

 _And he still thinks he's the luckiest sod in the world_ , Lily thought, watching him lift up the cushions of the sofa—the sleeve kept coming unfurled and dangling down over his wrist. _Poor idiot._

"Yes." She toyed with the magazine's cover, bending it back and forth. "You left it by the bed."

"Thing is—I've already _looked_ by the bed, and it's not there."

"I know, dear. It's not because I…took it."

James dropped the pillow he'd been rooting underneath and turned around, slowly. His wearing the hideous sweater now seemed less like a sweet gesture and more like an imposition put upon him by his new wife, the crap domestic.

"Did you need to use it?"

"Of course not." She folded up the magazine and placed it on her lap. "I sort of…lent it out."

They'd been married less than a year, and so James had not yet had the chance to begrudge his young wife anything that was his—but even Lily knew that to lend out his most treasured possession, an extremely valuable artifact and family heirloom, without at least _asking_ him first had been crossing the line.

Of course, there was only one person who'd ever dare ask.

James's expression blackened like a storm cloud.

"If that _prat_ wants to borrow my cloak, he should have the _balls_ to ask me to my face."

He scowled and flung himself down next to her. Lily abandoned the magazine altogether in favor of a soothing, wifely lean into his shoulder and squeeze of his right hand. His expression softened a little.

"Did he at _least_ say what was so urgent he had to nick the cloak behind my back?"

"We didn't really get a chance to, erm—discuss it. He was in a real rush." She toyed with the soft hair at the back of his neck. "Remus seemed to have an inkling of what it was about. Why don't you ask him?"

He frowned and slouched lower.

"I shouldn't _have_ to ask Moony."

"No—of course not—you want Sirius to tell you." Lily's hand crept up to the back of his head and rested there, comfortably. "But I'm not sure playing 'hard to get' is the approach to take with him right now, James."

"He has an open invitation." James lifted up the hand she wasn't holding and ran it over the back of her fingers. "He knows he can come here whenever he likes."

"Because you were _so_ inviting the last time you spoke."

"I thought _you_ were the one sick of him always coming 'round without warning," he muttered, irritably. "Apparently he's finally gotten the _hint_."

Abruptly, James sat up and let go of Lily's hand—the loss of his warmth was palpable. She sighed—he was going to be like _this_ , was he?

Her husband had been so perpetually doted upon and beloved by almost everyone he'd ever known—so much so that he could get very moody when things didn't go his way. Lily wasn't used to not being the one holding him at arm's length.

"You're going to have to be patient with Sirius," Lily said, to her husband's back. "He's going through a rough patch—this is difficult for him."

"He doesn't make it easy for anyone else, either!" James snapped, moodily. "Or himself."

"This is not really about your cloak, is it?"

Her husband stared at his knees for a long moment.

"I just…I feel like…"

She rested her hand on his shoulder.

"…Like what?"

"Like I'm losing him," James admitted, so softly she had to strain to hear him.

For a moment his wife was convinced she'd misheard.

"What are you talking about?" Lily demanded. "How could _you_ possibly lose Sirius?"

"To _them_." James stood up and walked across the room—to not place in particular, all frantic energy, the Quidditch star with no pitch to escape to. " _They_ want him back."

She could have laughed—except that her husband was pacing about and looking as though someone had died, and it didn't seem the right moment for levity.

"So?" She shook her head. "Of course they do, but what does that matter?"

"It matters because…there's only room for one of us in Sirius's life," James answered, sounding more bitter than she had ever heard him. "They know it and he knows it. I guess he figures—why delay the inevitable?"

Lily rose to her feet and pulled him by the shoulder, forcibly tugging her husband around to look her in the eye.

"Listen to me— _Sirius loves you_." She grasped both sides of his face—she could have shaken him. "And he's just agreed to be godfather to our child. That does not sound like someone on a slow slide to abandoning you."

He tried to turn his face away, but she held it too tightly.

"What was it you two were really fighting about yesterday?" He hesitated. Lily's hands dropped to her side. "James, I told you to lay _off_ him about his parents."

" _They_ —" James removed his spectacles and cleaned them with the edge of his sleeve. "Are not good people."

She sat back down on the sofa and tucked her arms around her middle, looking cross.

"What exactly is it they've done to you, recently?" Her look was reproachful. "Is his mum the one driving a wedge between you, or is that the work of James Potter himself?"

"It's not her." He punched the back of a pillow, expression pensive. "It's his father."

"What—"

"—I think he's blackmailing Sirius."

His wife stared at him, utterly aghast.

"That is—totally ludicrous, James."

"I'm not so sure it is."

If she was expecting a laugh, an admission that he was kidding her—Lily was to be disappointed, for her husband was, apparently, deadly serious.

"No _wonder_ Sirius is so cross with you—where did you even get such an outlandish idea?"

"From his brother—" James shrugged. "He all but told me their father is holding something over Padfoot's head."

Lily let out a little laugh—the condescending tone beneath it raised James's hackles immediately.

"You believe what Regulus tells you?" She shook her head. "Really, darling—I'd think you would know better by now."

"Why shouldn't I believe him?" James rejoined, turning on his heel. "What reason would he have to make that up?"

A piece of Lily's hair fell into her eyes—she blew it up, frustrated.

"It's so obvious—he's jealous." She sat up on the sofa. "If there was _anyone_ who was going to try to drive a wedge between you, it would be Sirius's brother."

"Why would he bother telling me something that could be so easily proven false?"

"Because he resents you!" She exploded—really, how dense could James be? "Because you—you're the _replacement_ brother. You took Sirius from him—in his mind, anyway."

It was not the first time that this had been suggested to James, in one way or another—but he had never been less sympathetic to this perspective on Sirius's family than now, when he was fairly certain

"Is that any better?" He demanded. "The way you talk, it's almost like you think it's justified."

"Not _justified_ —but—" She shook her head. "—Understandable."

"Understandable to whom?"

"It's just—" She sighed, impatient. "I'm afraid you don't really understand what it's like."

"—What _what's_ like?"

"To have a sibling you don't get on with," Lily said, bluntly. "To have _family_ you don't get on with—but want to, sometimes, even if they _are_ a pain in the arse."

That James had a charmed life had never been something he'd tried to deny—but to hear the censure in the woman he loved over it—that seemed to knock him sideways.

"And everything's always so black and white with you," Lily continued, gentler. "There's something in between."

"I know that."

"Well, you _can_ be rather extreme."

"Lily…this is a situation where my 'extremity' is called for."

Her husband gave her a hard look and ran his hands through his hair. Words that had been meant to calm him down, give him some perspective, show him that he was overreacting—all they'd done was ratchet him up further.

She decided to take another tact.

"Look, as far as Sirius—playing nice with his parents, and doing things for them, goes…I'm sure that's just him following Dumbledore's orders. If there was something the matter—well—" She flushed. "I know he can be a little—erratic, but Padfoot knows what he's doing. You have to trust that."

He looked at her for a long time, expression unsurprised.

"You want to know why I didn't want to tell you about this?" He laughed, grimly. "I knew you wouldn't believe it."

"It's not that I don't think it's possible—"

"—But you don't want it to be true. You don't _want_ to believe someone could be blackmailed by their own dad. Because you _always_ have to see the best in everyone."

She was tempted to point out that she had managed to evade seeing the best in him for six years, but she was spared her chance at lightening what was fast blowing up into a fight by his next comment.

"You can be _so_ naive, Lily."

"What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe everything is black and white for me. But _you_ —" He smiled, ruefully. " _You_ are so good—I sometimes think you have a hard time seeing the rest of the world isn't."

This was rich, coming from him. He practically bled honor, Sirius was always taking the piss out of him for it—hell, where did he get off?

"I'm not fighting in the Order because it's a bloody picnic, James." She glared at him—God, he was smiling, laughing—not at her, but himself, and, damn him—she was about to start laughing as well. "I'm fighting for my life. Unlike you, _I_ don't have much of a choice."

"Maybe that was true _before_ we got married." He shook his head, eyes brimming with resolution. " _Now_ we're in this together."

Lily put her hand instinctively on her stomach—he was right. There was something more than both of them—someone who was part of both of them—and that's what they had to think about.

If it came down to it he would be there, pureblood or no.

"Too bad for you—to be shackled to the goody-good idiot." She smiled, wryly. "How much help am I going to be to you, when I'm this stupid?"

"'Good' is not the same thing as 'stupid.'"

"You think I'm misjudging Sirius's family out of _what_ , then—some daft, rosy-tinted idiocy?"

"Well—" James let out a flat laugh. "It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

It took only a second for him to realize his mistake—and for _her_ face to turn almost as red as her hair.

James, who'd stuck his foot in it with her dozens of times, had at least learned how to recover quickly.

"Lily, I…I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did." She bit her lip and picked the magazine—only so she could throw it onto the floor again. "And the worst thing is—you're right."

James's eyebrows went up.

"About what?"

"You know." She bit her lip. " _Him_. Regulus told me. He's with _them_."

Lily didn't know what was worse—his look of shock or how quickly he recovered from it. It was not a difficult prospect for James to believe.

"How can you be sure?"

She snorted.

"Regulus would have even less reason to lie about _that_ than your blackmail idea. Anyway—" Her shoulders fell. "I knew…that was the direction he was going. That's why we stopped being friends."

She watched the carefully controlled play of emotions on her husband's face—the questions he would have liked to ask at war with his desire to never mention the name of the person who had once been such a barrier between them.

"Can it be proved?" James asked, finally.

"You _know_ it can't. Severus is very careful." Lily pressed her mouth into a thin line. "He will've covered his tracks, I'm sure."

A long, tense silence followed. There were some subjects that—in spite of the strides they'd made—still sore. It would take time to heal all the wounds of the past, Lily figured. And they had the rest of their life for that.

They were going to spend it together—till death did them part.

"You're certain of this…thing about Mr. Black, aren't you?"

The return to the earlier subject—however uncomfortable it might be—was a relief for her husband. He laughed, shakily.

"It's just—the thing is— _Sirius didn't deny it_." James grimaced. "And you know how he is, he never lies to _me_."

"He usually doesn't have to." Lily drummed her fingers against her wrist. "What…exactly is it you think his father is holding over Sirius's head?"

Another silence—and was it her imagination, or did he seem worried, just then?

He threw his hands up into the air—and the white flag of surrender with it.

"I don't—forget it, Lily. Forget the whole damn thing. Maybe I _am_ being the idiot—letting Regulus get to me." James rubbed the back of his hair—a nervous tick he'd never been able to shake. "Perhaps I have the opposite problem of you—always assuming the worst."

Lily could tell James didn't really believe that, and was trying to reassure her by pretending he agreed with her initial diagnosis. While this was, in its own way, stupidly noble (and his idiotic noble streak was one of the things she liked best about him—stupid her!) it was also extremely annoying.

But it was late, and she was tired and hormonal and did not fancy going to bed angry with him—not when there was an alternative.

"I hope you at _least_ had the sense to keep this to yourself."

James flung himself back down on the sofa besides her. He looked quite pathetic, and just like any self-respecting woman in love, her immediate instinct was to comfort him—even if it was comfort he needed from their fight.

 _Spoiling him, just like he's used to._

"Did he say when he was going to bring the cloak back?"

"Ask him yourself."

He sank back into the cushions next to her and pulled Lily close.

" _We_ aren't fighting, are we?"

She nestled into his chest, instinctively.

"Mm. I don't think so. Your fragile soul couldn't take fighting with your favorite _and_ your second favorite person."

She rested her head near his heard—listening to the slow and steady breathing in and out. Reliable, strong—something you could depend upon.

James.

"I just…I don't want things to change," he said, in a voice barely more than a whisper.

"But they _will_ —darling—they already _have._ "

His lips brushed the top of her head. Tonight, they would hold each other close.

Everything else—their friends, Sirius, the war—could wait.

* * *

If Walburga had known that her husband's response to her staunch refusal to drink the glass of brandy he'd procured from his study for would be to drink it himself, she would have swallowed her proverbial pride along with the brandy. As it was, she found herself waiting with baited breath for a reaction to her plan from an Orion Black who was quite _sauced_.

"Tell me, Mrs. Black—" She pursed her lips as she watched Orion pour himself an entirely unnecessary fourth glass. "What did my sister say when you presented her with your, erm— extraordinary idea?"

This query was neither expected nor desired.

"Who cares what Lucretia thinks?" She attempted to tug the bottle out of his hand, but he firmly grasped it. "She doesn't even have any children of her own."

"I take it she does not approve?" He asked her, idly. "It does occur to you that she may have come to the flat this afternoon to tip him off."

Her nostrils flared dangerously at the suggestion.

"She wouldn't dare. She knows I'd never forgive her." Walburga sniffed. "Do _you_ disapprove?"

He guffawed into his drink.

"Not on moral grounds, I assure you." Walburga tossed her head—as if _that_ had been what she was worried about. "Undoubtedly he deserves far worse—no, for me it's a question of _efficacy_."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm skeptical that it will work," Mr. Black informed her, bluntly. "This… _plan_ of yours—" He rolled the glass between his fingers. "It depends upon your son displaying a degree of deference for social convention I have hitherto not seen from him."

She had to resist the urge to snap back with a rejoinder that he had only himself to blame for his lack of imagination where his sons were concerned.

"Sirius won't let her be disgraced," Walburga replied, smoothly. "He's more like you than he realizes."

"I will not pretend to know whether that is meant to be a compliment or an slight."

"He had that girl out on the roof of Kenwood House in the middle of the night and didn't touch her."

Orion swirled the amber liquid in his glass and looked up.

"The apex of honor, I'm sure."

"Well, I certainly think it more gentlemanly behavior than _most_ wizards of his age would display, in the situation."

It was only her prudence that kept her from mentioning that she was speaking from the experience of having _been_ a young woman who knew many wizards of his age quite well—but Orion was well aware of that fact, and it would not do to remind him of her old beaus when he was already in a high dudgeon.

"I also—" He rose unsteadily to his feet. "Have my doubts about whether these Normans will accept your explanation for the unorthodox chaperonage of their daughter while staying in this house."

"It's not as though I'll be leaving them alone together—not truly!" Walburga pointed out—annoyed that he would even, however opaquely, allude to such a thing. "And anyway, the mother and father will be looking for any excuse to cement the alliance—and look the other way."

"You do not _know_ these people—"

"—I know enough!" Walburga snapped. "Once she realizes what her daughter might come into, Madame Battancourt will do my work for me."

"Maybe so." He looked up from his glass. "But there's not just her to contend with."

"What—"

"—Sirius is going to know you're behind this, Walburga."

She pursed her lips and set her chin in a stubborn approximation of her son.

"By that point it will be too late for him."

He shook his head, the ghost of a smile flitted across his face. Walburga wished she understood better what that look meant—was he laughing at her, or did it portend to something else?

He set the glass firmly down upon the table and approached her again. She could feel his presence as she stared into the fire—no matter how softly he stepped—and he never stomped—she had always known when he was there. A steady, reliable feeling, like being wrapped in a well-worn cloak.

"What about the girl?" She looked around from the fire. "Have you considered her feelings?"

"No. Why should I?"

"She may, believe it or not, my dear—she may not _wish_ to marry our son."

She let out a laugh of disbelief.

"Don't be ridiculous."

It had never occurred to her that a girl Sirius Orion set his cap on wouldn't be. Apparently her husband thought differently, if his sour expression was anything to go by.

"You set quite the store on that boy of yours," he murmured, poking at that coals in the fireplace moodily.

Walburga sighed. Was he accusing her of being sentimental? That Sirius was a matrimonial prize was a fact, pure and simple. And as for the girl, well— _she_ was besotted.

"Hardly." She lightly traced a pattern on his sleeve with her hand. "I've seen it all before."

He looked around at her, his eyes piercing.

"What do you mean?"

Mrs. Black rolled her eyes. Really, he could be _so_ blind sometimes.

"With _you_ , of course." Mrs. Black threw up her wand hand into the air, impatiently—and a pile of tea towels flew off the drying rack and onto the floor in a heap. "Sirius looks just like _his father_ at that age, and all those stupid, insipid girls wanted to marry _you._ "

For a moment he looked perplexed, and she thought she was in for a tedious argument about the past—what had and hadn't happened—his demurring over those empty-headed Rosiers and Averys and Montagues who had dangled after him like so much fishing lure.

Instead, he laughed.

"I seem to recall there was _one_ stupid girl who wanted no such thing."

Walburga pursed her lips.

"Quite the opposite, in fact—" He rounded on her, practically exuding sarcasm. "I believe the first time I asked her to marry me she consigned me to the devil and told me to tell my father he could follow me there in short order."

She flushed pink.

"You have the most tedious memory."

"Tedious?" He smiled. "Or stunningly acute?"

It was all going so much worse than she had planned—she'd gotten his back up with all this talk of the past—what a miscalculation. Hoping to salvage the situation, Walburga tilted her face up at him, hoping at least that last trick in her arsenal would work.

She heard the short, subdued gasp—his breath catching in his throat.

"You got me in the end," Walburga murmured, slowly. "You won."

His face softened, and Orion pulled up the hand—strategically left dangling, fingers inches from his own—and traced her knuckles with his thumb.

"It was a hard-fought battle," he replied, gently. "And not without its costs."

He released her fingers and let the hand drop back to her side. She may not have understood him often in their marriage—he was frequently quite an opaque mystery to her—but she knew what Orion was thinking now. He was cautioning her not to get her hopes up and wondering what she would do if this plan of hers failed.

 _Then we go back to_ your _plan and chain him to the wall._

"Are you going to interfere?"

"What are you asking me, really?" Orion asked, wearily. "An outright request will do you far better than all this dickering."

"Do you promise not to confront him about the fact that you know he met the girl last night?"

"I will—" He rolled his eyes. " _Pretend not to know_ this fascinating yarn you've spun me about our son's romantic exploits—if you do something of the same for me."

She grinned, a devilish glint in her eye.

"I didn't mention anything about the dog to him—or to the girl or Lucretia."

"Good. If you haven't guessed already, that's how I've gotten him in hand."

It was hard not to have guessed, when he'd lied to her face in front of both of their sons—but Walburga was trying not to let that annoy her in this moment of triumph.

He drummed his fingers on the mantle over the fire.

"Your not knowing about that is all I've got over him at present. It wouldn't do at all to change course _now_."

"Well, I don't see why he should be so afraid of me finding out he's an Animagus!"

He sniggered and picked up the fire poker again. It seemed to help him think, to have something to do with his hands.

"Your son is all courage and no sense—I fear _you_ are the only thing he's afraid of." Her eyes flashed. "It's been very useful to me this week. He'll do anything I say, so long as I promise not to divulge his secret to his mother."

"What does he think I'm going to do, have him locked up in Azkaban?" Walburga huffed, indignantly.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Certainly not." Her eyes narrowed at the thought. " _They_ wouldn't be able to manage Sirius Orion at all. He'd be running amuck there in a week—no, he'd be much better off safely back in his room in this house."

"Which you would no doubt make one of the terms of his release into your custody after you had him arrested."

She huffed—but didn't deny it. Her husband laughed.

"What is so amusing, Orion Black?"

"You and I—coordinating stories to hoodwink our son." He tossed the fire poker aside. "It is a farce. No boy in the history of the world could be worth stooping to this."

"Of course it's worth it!" She put her hands on her hips. "Don't you want grandchildren?"

He scoffed.

"Not particularly. I've never thought about it." Orion squinted at his wife—the man seemed to be taking inordinate pleasure in vexing her. "Are they going to be anything like their father?"

Mrs. Black sighed, ever long-suffering.

"You know, you might fool him—but you don't fool _me_."

Orion grumbled something intelligible, acutely aware of that probing look that said she could see through him like a water glass. He let out another long sigh.

"What is so special about this girl, anyway?"

Mrs. Black considered the question. In truth, she had spent the bulk of the day wondering that herself. It wasn't _only_ expedience, after all—she would not have gone to these lengths for _any_ girl who stumbled helplessly into her path.

In spite of all her efforts to tame him, the fact remained that Sirius _was_ unusual—or rather, odd—idealistic and stubborn in equal measures, and that he had taken a shine to Colette Battancourt likely meant she was a difficult case herself, in her own way. Walburga had her suspicions the girl had some silly ideas all of her own (too much reading!) and that her son was hoping to encourage the French witch in them, in a poorly-advised streak of gallantry.

Two misfits finding each other was not ideal—especially when she knew so little about one of them. But she was, at her heart, a deeply superstitious woman, and she did not think it could be mere coincidence that this had happened right when she had been in most need.

Anyway, the girl seemed biddable enough. Any deficiencies could be smoothed out by an involved and dutiful mother-in-law.

"I just…have a feeling about her," she answered, smoothly. Orion's eyes gleamed in the firelight—but he gave no indication he would argue.

Marriage was a woman's business, anyway. Better he let her work her magic.

"I still think it will all come to nothing."

"Then we'll see who's _right_ , won't we?"

The sound of more than one set of footsteps and the high voice of Kreacher greeting the two girls drew the Blacks' attention.

" _Auntie_?" A soft call down the stairs. "Uncle Orion?"

They looked up—an identical movement—to find their niece, still wearing her fur wrap, descending the narrow staircase to the kitchen.

"Ah—Narcissa—how was theatre?"

"Lovely."

Narcissa reached the bottom of the stairs and looked between them, curious. She didn't remark on them being in the kitchen so late, though it had probably been a decade since she'd last seen her uncle there at all. Narcissa had been well trained by her mother not to ask questions.

 _If only Sirius had one-tenth of Cissy's skill at holding his tongue._

"And Lucius?" Walburga prompted their niece. "How was he?"

"Very well. He brought Rodolphus and Rabastan along for dinner—we went to the Savoy."

"Where was Bellatrix?" Orion demanded, sharply.

Narcissa started and blinked. Her uncle had his back to her—and it was so…odd, to hear him raise his voice, even a decibel. Her father and Black grandfather had tempers, so it wasn't as though she wasn't used to it…

But _he_ had always seemed so cold-blooded, compared to them.

"She didn't come. Still under the weather, I suppose." She shrugged and turned to her aunt. "I just wanted you to know, auntie, before you go to bed—that Colette's asked me to tell you if you're still willing to take us along with you to Scotland tomorrow, she'd like to go."

Her aunt and uncle did not immediately reply—though Walburga's eyes glittered oddly in the low light of her kitchen fire.

"She changed her mind, then?" She gave Orion a sly look, but he had already turned back to the fireplace. "When did this come about?"

"Sometime during act two, around when she spent the whole first movement of Beethoven's fourth hiding in the ladies' power room."

Walburga had to trod on her husband's foot to prevent him from letting out a violent exclamation.

"The ladies' _powder room—_?" Orion repeated, tightly. "What—was—what was she doing in _there_?"

Narcissa rolled her eyes and shared a look of feminine solidarity with her aunt.

"Rabastan was being a bore—the ladies' is the only refuge from men who are bores, uncle."

Walburga nudged him with her foot again—grateful, as always, for the long skirts she always wore. Mrs. Black managed to keep her taciturn husband from firing off like a malfunctioning wand long enough to reassure Narcissa they would get some _fine_ shopping in before meeting her old professor, and that the higher altitudes would be good for her child.

He even managed to hold his tongue until after Cissy had gone off to bed.

"Apparently for _some_ witches, not even the powder room is a refuge," Orion muttered, when he and his wife were safely alone again. "I cannot believe the _nerve_ of that little—"

"You _said_ you were too tired to go over there again tonight, remember?"

He clenched his eyes shut for a moment.

"You are asking a great deal tonight, madam. You don't know the restraint you're forcing upon me."

Walburga tutted and clasped her hands together.

"You can punish him all you like— _after_ the betrothal is formalized," she informed him, ever practical.

"Thank you for giving me permission," he groused, moodily, staring into the fire.

Mrs. Black came up behind him and laid a hand delicately on his shoulder.

"When I hand you a newborn grandson in two years you'll be _thanking_ me, Orion Black."

She felt the rise and fall of his chest—a laugh, short and brisk and cut off too soon.

"What a sentimental picture you paint." Though Walburga could not see his face, she could hear in his voice a strange melancholy. Of course, he got that way sometimes—he brooded. She rather thought that was where Sirius had gotten it from. "You truly are going soft in your dotage."

"Are you coming to bed?" Walburga asked, quietly.

For a moment she thought he hadn't heard her, until—

"Have you told me everything?"

The image of an ugly and noisy contraption spewing smoke rose in Walburga's mind. No, there was no need to tell him about _that_. He really would insist on marching over if he knew Sirius Orion had taken the Battancourt girl out on one of _those_.

"Everything you _need_ to know."

"That is not very reassuring." He repressed a laugh. "I will be up shortly."

"You won't—dawdle?"

Orion turned around—smiling that strange, sad smile she'd seen glimpses of—in the last few weeks with increasing regularity. Walburga didn't understand it. At first she thought he'd been laughing at her, one of his strange, private jokes he thought flew over her head.

Now she thought he seemed tired, more than anyway.

"I won't." He cocked an eyebrow. "I would _never_ deny you the pleasure of having an ear to pour one of your schemes into."

Mrs. Black rolled her eyes but kept the sharp-tongued rejoinder—that it was a large, cold bed and lighting the fire would be a bother ( _and,_ a voice whispered, _she didn't want to be alone)—_ firmly in her head.

Better to not let the man think she'd missed his company _too_ much.

He might get a swelled head.

* * *

 **And thus, another day comes to a close in my story. Thank you for staying with me. Probably will be a short hiatus here, as I've got a lot going on in my real life. Cheers, and, as always** — **comments very much appreciated.**


	19. Chapter 19

_"…_ _Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night…I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did…"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 19**

* * *

 ** _December 22nd, 1979_**

The snow that blanketed the grounds gave Hogwarts the air of one of those sentimental paintings of eighteenth-century landscapes dotted with peasants—the sort of pictures of which her great-aunt Cassiopeia was so fond.

At _least_ the path to the castle had been cleared off before their arrival, Narcissa thought, sulkily. All it took was the mere sight of snow—even the compacted, smooth kind that she had modestly lifted her skirts for as she trailed behind her aunt and old school master on the winding path from the flanked gates up to Hogwarts Castle—to put Mrs. Malfoy in a high dudgeon. She did not like the cold—a frigid, wet unpleasantness which seeped into the skin and burrowed straight down into the bones—the cold that knocked the wind right out of you. She was not a creature of _extremes_ —she would take an English summer, with its breezy, mild haze and damp sunsets, over a Scottish winter, _any_ day.

She was not _Bellatrix_.

Narcissa shivered. The thought of her sister—who she had once seen walk across a frozen pond with bare feet in December, just to prove she could—conjured memories of another Christmas holiday, long gone by. They had been with their father, who—instead of letting his daughters take the train back to school (which would have meant a long, comfortable ride filled with light gossip and the company of friends and Lucius)—had dumped them in the village a day before start of term for his own convenience. The _tedious_ visit at the pub with his parents (which Papa had _naturally_ begged off of) had dragged on so long they'd missed their portkey, and had to hike up the hill to school on the foot through a blizzard.

She had trudged up this very path through almost two feet of the stuff.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Slughorn called out, as he lead the small party with the air of an explorer of the Antarctic. "Snow stopped yesterday. They say it'll be clear for the rest of the week! Quite pleasant for a walk."

Narcissa was far enough behind them that neither Aunt Walburga nor her old head of house caught sight of her eye-roll.

Professor Slughorn had come to meet them, that time, too.

She had thought it the most degrading chore to have to walk instead of take a carriage with the rest of the school—Andromeda had tried to cheer her up by conjuring a flame in her gloved hand to melt the ice from their gloves, but nothing could stop Cissy's railing against papa's unfairness, and by the end she'd nearly been in tears.

( _"Don't whinge, Cissy."_ _Andromeda's gentle scolding could be worse than Bella's cruelty, when she deployed just the right way. "It's only a bit of snow—and anyway, won't it make the common room that much cozier?"_ )

She had told Andromeda she supposed that was true, wiping her eyes—just in time for Bella to dribble ice down the back of her cloak.

 _("What a_ baby _you are, Cissy—" She called, in her horrible sing-song voice. "You need toughening up.")_

And then, of course, to illustrate her point, Bellatrix had smashed a snowball into the side of her head.

What had led to sobs and hysterics _then_ only brought faint irritation, now. Everyone always treated her like a child—the family _baby_ , so _spoiled_ , too delicate for even the lightest burden. They always had.

Once she thought they always would.

At _least_ Colette didn't see her that way. It was nice to have someone who looked up to her, for once—instead of looking down.

"A shame about your friend Miss Battancourt taking ill so suddenly, Narcissa!" Professor Slughorn's booming voice, which always filled his study and office, somehow seemed diminished by the blanket of whiteness that surrounded them. He sounded very far away. "Didn't she want to see the castle?"

"It was the reason we came, professor!" she called up the hill, unable to keep the clip out of her voice. "Other than to see you, of course."

It certainly was a shame, Narcissa thought, as she pulled her fur-trimmed cloak more tightly around her shoulders. They had had the most absorbing lunch, after a busy morning of shopping in the village—a most promising debut for their Miss Battancourt. The distracted, distant quality that Colette had shown at the theatre the night before had been quite wiped away by a good night's rest. The girl was gay and lively—almost determined to have a good time—and Slughorn had been very taken with her. Of course, it helped that he knew her grandfather, he enjoyed regaling them with the tale of a potioneering symposium in Morocco during which he and the formidable Professor _du Bellay_ had gotten lost in the casbah.

"A crying shame," Slughorn mourned, jovially.

"Must've been the mutton," Aunt Walburga sniffed, derisively. "And perhaps the altitude."

"She went to school in the _Pyrenees_ , Auntie."

"Anyway, I'm sure she'll perk up after a good rest."

What a bother, though—when this visit—and this dratted slog up to the castle, the 'scenic stroll'—was supposed to be for Colette's _benefit._

It _was_ a little…odd, how it happened.

The thought had crossed her mind that Colette might've been pretending—except that when she'd stood up after lunch the girl had been so obviously light-headed that she'd nearly fainted into Narcissa's arms—and that was the kind of theatrical taking ill that not even the most skilled actress she knew—her oldest sister—could have pulled off.

And Colette wouldn't have contrived to sneak away without _first_ telling her. It wasn't in her character. Less artifice than a kitten—one of her great charms. Of course, she _was_ coming out of her shell. She'd certainly put far more effort into her appearance this morning that Narcissa had ever seen from her before—Colette had even asked (with obvious embarrassment) for advice about which cosmetic potions to use.

This conversation had brightened Cissy considerable. Clearly she was a positive influence. Her Christmas project was shaping up. By the time Regulus returned from France she was sure her friend would be quite ready to show herself off to full advantage.

What had really been astounding was Aunt Walburga being so indulgent as to let Colette rest on her own in a strange bar before she Flooed back to Grimmauld Place. She'd almost expected her aunt to use Colette taking ill as an excuse to get them out of going up to the castle for a drink—Professor Slughorn preferred his particular store of liquor to anything Madame Rosmerta kept in her bar—but Walburga had taken an unusual firm stance in the matter, insisting they go on without their guest.

Perhaps, Cissy reasoned, her aunt knew that if she didn't honor the old potion master's wishes _now_ she'd be badgered to come back that much sooner. Well, she could understand wanting to get it out of the way.

Yes. The visit was a chore and a duty to be fulfilled, made marginally less interesting by the absence of her friend. Luckily she knew her duty well. She had grown up since that far-off day (not _so_ far off) and knew better than to complain about something as trivial as her feet getting damp in the snow.

When she caught sight of the massive turrets over the hill, even she was struck by the beauty of it.

It _was_ a crying shame that Colette had missed this view of the castle.

Still—there would be other chances. She might one day have children herself at Hogwarts. Narcissa instinctively ran her hand over the her stomach and smiled.

"Shall we warm up with a toddy?" Slughorn asked, as the women bustled into the castle.

As Narcissa politely declined, she hid the small, secret smile under the edge of her cloak's hood.

* * *

The first and _principle_ duty of a house-elf was to obey his master's orders.

The enchantment that bound an elf to his family reminded him of this fact constantly—but any elf worth his salt took such _pride_ in serving his people it would never occur to him to do anything else.

It had certainly never occurred to Kreacher. He scorned the very idea.

Kreacher was a _good_ elf.

The second—and no less important—law that governed the life of an elf was that he was bound to keep his master's secrets.

Kreacher understood this well. Like all great and noble families of pure magical blood, Kreacher's family had many secrets, and he considered it his greatest duty to guard them from prying outsiders, all those lowborn and meddling and unworthy. His mistress didn't need to order him anymore. He knew how to hold his tongue.

Discretion and obedience were paramount.

Along with these, there was a third rule, little known to the wizards that ruled over the elves.

They were not _meant_ to know it. For them to know it would defeat its purpose—but for the elves it was an implicit understanding, their lot in life and what distinguished them from mere human (half-blood, mudblood) servants.

No elf could be truly worthy until he knew his master and mistress better than they knew themselves.

Kreacher knew that Master Black rose early and retired late, and that any noise beyond a gentle knock upon his door would make Orion cross and snap at his wife. So, he had learned to keep the children a floor above or below the study after dinner, at the cost of pulled ears and tantrums from at least one of his charges. He knew his Mistress was near-sighted, and so he silently guided her as she did the daily ritual of lighting the lamps, leading with the lightest tug of the hem, using his magic to mould the warped wood to her feet and ensure she never fell.

He would never tell her this. Had she discovered that he did these things, his mistress's pride could not have born it. Mistress would probably give him clothes and send him away in disgrace, but he risked it for her and the family. He watched, he observed. He cared for them—he did all this quietly and obediently.

…Of course, an elf didn't watch every family member, day-after-day, year-after-year, observing and serving and knowing them _so_ well that not a single spoken order need be made for an entire day—and not form _opinions_.

Kreacher had _those_ , too.

The greatest secret an elf had to guard was his masters' weaknesses. _This_ was a great burden, the weight of which was far more terrible to him than any punishment he had ever had to give himself for lapses in duty.

It pained him to admit it, but even Mistress Black had a weakness—a blindspot that made her lose all reason, and since the day that he had realized what it was the old elf had lived in terrible fear of her enemies discovering it as well.

He had thought they were rid of it three years before.

Kreacher had been wrong.

Now he had to be more watchful than ever, for her sake, guard her more covetously than ever, less she succumb to this weakness. He was bound to do this by his station, and the great responsibility he bore to her. They might know what they wanted—but the wizards could not always be trusted to know what they _needed_ —their needs had to be anticipated. _They_ had to be anticipated.

And, above all, never questioned.

It wasn't an elf's place to wonder why he'd been sent on an errand by his master or mistress—but what elevated a truly great elf from his inferior compatriots was that he could guess the true purpose behind a cryptic order.

 _"_ _Don't let yourself be seen,"_ Mistress Black had said, resolute. _"It will be your job to prevent any…trouble."_ She had delicately stressed this final word. " _If any happens, fetch me immediately._ "

Kreacher's mistress was clever. She trusted him to understand with no more than this.

Mistress had something in mind, Kreacher thought, as he crouched low in the snow at the outskirts of the village. His mistress _always_ had something in mind.

He watched the solitary figure—the target of his investigation—from behind a rubbish bin.

Why, he couldn't guess. The ways of his mistress were often mysterious.

He was sure that he would come to understand his purpose in time. All he had to do was be watchful.

If he followed the first and second rules of an elf, the value of the third would follow.

* * *

The heavy winter cloak—lined with soft white fox fur, one of the many expensive insistences of Madame Battancourt for her trip—was very fashionable _and_ warm, but Colette found the weight of it a bit oppressive ("I look as though my head is stuck in a snow drift, _Maman_!" she had exclaimed, after trying it on). She longed for a less frigid winter—one that would have allowed her to discard it in favor of a sensible wool gown, like the ones that she usually took out when she was walking about the farm in the snow.

At least with _those_ she didn't trip over the hem and drag it in the sludge.

While the village was as charming as Mrs. Black had insisted it would be when they set out on the excursion this morning, Colette found the stillness in Hogsmeade eerie. There was hardly a soul about—even the pub where they lunched had been mostly empty.

It wasn't a peaceful stillness, either. Strange, so close to Christmas—and Diagon Alley had been much the same, with very few people out doing their shopping. There was an unsettled aspect to it all. Perhaps this was just how England was, she thought, unable to shake off the lingering thought—born from the natural common sense she had, for all her dreaminess, never been able to dislodge—that there was something _not right_ about it. Her mother and father _had_ warned her that England would be different from France, hadn't they?

 _"_ _Don't they know there's a war on in this country?"_

Even in Colette's head his voice was a warm breath tickling her ear. She tucked the thought away to ask her new—her—to ask _him_ , _if_ ever showed up.

 _He will show up. This was his idea, remember?_

Her stomach fluttered—still unsettled from whatever it was that Mrs. Black had given her to drink before they set out, she was sure. She certainly wasn't _nervous_ about this meeting—and she wasn't looking forward to it at all.

A traitorous tendril of rosewater-scented hair brushed against her cheek.

A feeling crept over her—the prickling of the hairs on the back of her hand standing up, followed by the sound of rustling behind. She turned in the direction of the source of the noise.

Colette pulled out her wand slowly.

"Who is it?" The girl tried to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "Who goes there?"

It was silly to be afraid, Colette told herself, as she struggled to keep her fingers from trembling. It was the middle of the day in broad daylight in a village—a little remote, perhaps, but she had sneaked away from chaperones before. It wasn't as though she couldn't—handle herself.

Another rustle—the bin lid fell off, Colette started—and an enormous black dog stuck its head out from behind the trash bin.

Colette dropped her wand hand and sighed. She watched the creature shake the snow off its head, on the verge of laughing at herself. No more than a foolish posture of defense, for her experience of martial magic was so dismal she could scarcely have defended herself against this _dog_ , let alone an actual threat.

"Hello—you startled me, you know."

The dog barked—a single, friendly yip of unmistakable greeting—then trotted over to her.

Colette crouched down low to the ground—but the animal, so friendly a moment before, made no move toward the outstretched hand, ready to pet it. Instead he plopped down in the snow a curiously formal foot away.

"Are you out here all by yourself?"

He blinked and tilted his head, as if to say that _she_ was one to talk. She gave him a suspicious look.

" _I_ am meeting something," Colette informed her canine companion, severely. "Well, I am supposed to be, anyway. Apparently he is _often_ late."

Her furry companion made a whining noise and stood up on all four legs. He jabbed his head (Colette didn't know _why_ she was so sure it was a he, except that there was a distinctly masculine quality of bold insolence—it was the sort of thought that her mother would have called one of her 'flights of fancy') in the direction of a narrow alley at the far end of the street.

The French girl stood up, laughter in her eyes.

"I am sorry, _Monsieur_ _Chien_." He tugged at her skirt, which she pulled gently away, amused. "I cannot go off with a strange dog that I have not even been introduced to. What would _ma mère_ say?"

The dog let out an unseemly snort and leaned on his back haunches. It was an oddly controlled creature, not at all like the ones they kept on the farm, forever jumping up and running every which way—and so Colette was taken completely off-guard when the beast abruptly sprung up, darted forward and snatched the handle of her purse right out from under her!

She let out an exclamation in French, but the animal was already yards away, sprinting headlong in the direction of the alley.

"Wait a—come back here!"

His head start and natural agility—to say nothing of his four long legs—meant that by the time Colette had realized what had happened, the thief had already run a longer distance than she could ever hope to overtake and disappeared from sight around the corner.

She raced after him, huffing, forgetting all pretense at ladylike behavior (her stockings would be drenched) and hoping that, should she not corner him in the alley and regain her reticule, the horrible creature would get his magnificent snout stuck in a milk bottle.

As she rounded the corner, Colette was overtaken with the fancy to shout this wish at her quarry.

"Get _back_ here, you horrid little—"

Not taking into account the slickness of the ice and her need to correct her speed for it, Colette slipped and skidded and fell—or would have, if a pair of strong and very masculine arms had not been waiting to catch her.

"Easy there," a familiar voice laughed.

Her legs slid backwards, and Colette's cheek—flushed bright red—found itself pressed against a chest, warm through the damp cloak.

Sirius grabbed her arm to keep her from slipping, but she had lost her footing anyway—the only difference was that she had fallen onto him rather than on the ground. _Which is only slightly less mortifying._

The French witch righted herself, and tried to smother the disappointing feeling of loss when he let go.

"In a hurry, Miss Battancourt?" Sirius lifted up the strap of her turquoise reticule like a carnival prize. "Or is it 'Miss Vanksdatter' today? It's so difficult to keep track of your different aliases."

Colette snatched the purse out of his hand with rather less grace than she might've done had her rescuer been less smugly self-satisfied.

" _You_ are one to talk!" She harrumphed. "Does—does _that dog_ belong to you?"

She brushed some snow off her cloak, annoyed at how carefree he seemed. He wasn't the least bit ashamed of himself, the rascal!

Though, by the same token, he certainly wasn't making fun of her for her almost-tumble, the way her cousins would have in the same situation.

Sirius grinned, good-naturedly.

"He doesn't belong to anyone. He's a free agent." Today he was wearing robes—or at least, she assumed he was, under his plain black winter cloak. Hadn't he replaced it when he left school? It was two inches too short for him. It gave him a rakish quality, emphasizing how much he still seemed the overgrown schoolboy.

"You're welcome for retrieving your, erm—lost reticule, by the way."

She sniffed.

"Why should I thank you, when I know you are the one who is behind it being pilfered?" Colette shot back, annoyed. "That creature must be a friend of your Mister Fletcher."

"He _is,_ come to think of it." He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, come now. He's not all that bad. Quite the gentleman, in my experience. I'm sure the pilfering was a fluke. He didn't harm you, did he?"

" _Non_ , but—well, I think it is an awful trick," Colette informed him, primly. "To teach an otherwise nice animal to _steal_ from respectable people."

He leaned on the wall of the alley and flexed his hand against the brick, the other languidly dangling his wand above his head. It was at that moment she noticed his gloves—leather and fingerless.

So _that_ had been where that warm feeling on the back of her wrists when he had grabbed her hand had come from.

"'Respectable people' who sneak away from their chaperones?" Sirius asked, as the corner of his mouth turned up. "You should have followed him when he asked."

"Tugging my cloak is hardly asking."

He shrugged, carelessly.

"Sorry you've been waiting around. I couldn't risk showing myself until I was certain your merry party was away."

At the allusion to his mother, however vague, a shadow passed over Sirius's face. It quickly passed, and he pushed up from the wall, looking cheerful. _He is prone to changeable moods, then._

She snapped the bag open, making a point of showing she was making sure that his friend the thieving dog hadn't stolen anything out of her purse.

"Did they…see you?"

"Of course not." He pulled something silvery out of the satchel he wore slung on his shoulder—the invisibility cloak. "I know better than _that_." Sirius looked up from the cloak. "How did you manage to pull off getting away?"

Colette bit the inside of her cheek.

"I—I had to pretend to be ill. That is, I _was_ ill," Colette amended. "But then I…got better."

He frowned—and Colette blushed, for concern suited him better than boyish merriment.

"I don't understand—are you feeling alright?"

"I—I took something—" The confession, once begun, went quickly. "An infusion of bladderwrack and eyebright. During lunch, with the food."

His eyes widened with incredulity as realization dawned.

"That's a fainting draught. You took that? _Willingly_?" He took a step towards her, obviously concerned. Colette shrank back. "That stuff will put you to sleep for days."

"Not if you take an antidote very quickly," she told him, with the embarrassment of someone more concerned that they've done wrong than by any risk to their health. " _They_ all believed me quite ill, though. I nearly fell over on the table—the patroness of the bar was very kind, and when she gave me a bit of brandy with which to recover myself, I slipped it in, and feel…quite myself again."

Apart from the churning in the stomach, which had less to do with the after effects of the concoction than her fear that he would see through her story.

She could practically see the cogs turning behind his eyes, into the clever workings of his mind. Colette tried to remember what it was her mother had told her about distracting men—something about fluttering the eyelashes?

 _If I blink too much he will think I have an infection._

Luckily, there was no need for further deception on that score.

"As far as escape plans go, that's…bloody ingenious." Sirius smacked himself in the forehead. "I can't believe I've never thought of doing that—is that a trick you've used before, to play ill?"

Colette wrinkled her nose and shuffled her feet—she felt a little snow seep into her stockings.

" _Non_ …"

It hadn't even been her idea.

 _"_ _Chew on some of this the second we're out the door." Mrs. Black shoved the mugwort into her reticule without ceremony. "Very slowly, so the juices seep in slowly. You'll have an upset stomach for a little while, but you'll be clear-headed."_

 _She couldn't stop herself from staring up at the matron, star-struck. She was less amazed at Mrs. Black's skills as an apothecary than the matter-of-fact way in which she was describing how Colette should contrive to separate herself from her chaperone—in this case,_ herself _._

 _"_ _Madame Black, have you…have you done this before?"_

The scornful look she got at this impertinent question was its own sort of answer.

"Who taught you that trick?"

"Just a…friend," Colette replied, mysteriously. "She's used it herself. At least, I think so. I do not think she liked it very much when I asked."

Perhaps it was because of their limited history that Sirius let the matter go so easily. He tilted his head to one side.

"Well, _whoever_ she is, she sure knew what she was doing," He said, beckoning her deeper into the alley. Colette followed him, a few steps behind. "Wish I'd known you could play fainting by mixing up as simple a potion as that. I'd have used it to get out of a lot of my mother's boring parties."

He was so busy scaling the boarded up fence they found at the end of the lane Sirius missed the private smile on his companion's face.

"I'm not so sure you'd be able to fool _her_."

He glanced over his shoulder from his perch at the top of the gate.

"I _told_ you, her catching us night before last was a _fluke_."

He hopped down and unlatched it from the other side to let her through. Colette wisely refrained from arguing—perhaps the realization that he was not the first member of his family to have the cunning and desire to sneak away from a family excursion was too much for him at present.

"Alright—" He poked his head through the door. Somehow, the gesture looked familiar. "Shall we?"

He waved the silvery cloak in front of himself, like a bullfighter, then in a flash disappeared beneath it.

"Just to be safe," Sirius's disembodied voice said. "Follow me, eh?"

"How am I supposed to—"

A hand, gently wrapped in fine cloth, invisible to the touch—grasped her wrist.

"Like this."

She nodded, slowly—trusting that _he_ could see her, at least.

The young Monsieur Black—for, however often he might tell her to call him by his given name, she could not yet bring herself to use the familiarity, at least out loud—chattered softly as he lead her through the village, with only the invisible and gentle tug on her wrist to guide her. There was scarcely a spot in Hogsmeade not associated with an amusing anecdote ("The woman who runs that coffee house is an utter twat!" "I do know that word." "Probably for the best.") His colorful commentary about each spot they passed was very different from his mother and cousin's relation of the history of the village—but it was far more interesting.

"This is the joke shop I was once given a lifetime ban from. Some people have a very different idea of what constitutes 'disorderly conduct.'"

"It would appear Gambol and Japes gave you what the Orpheum never would," she observed, dryly, as they passed the shuttered windows. Yet _another_ shop closed for the holidays. She was about to ask him about it, when he continued—

"Fair point. I suppose I should have tried to incite a riot in the theatre, that would have done the trick. It's what the shop assistant in there accused me of. And all because they'd run out of frogspawn tablets. Did I mention I was thirteen when this all took place?"

"It must've slipped your mind."

Colette was so distracted by his engaging stories that she forgot her self-consciousness—she was not worried about the few passerbys they met thinking she was touched in the head for talking to herself—and she lost track of where they were going—so much so that when they reached the evident final destination and Sirius released her hand and removed the invisibility cloak, she scarcely knew where they were.

"They warned you about this place, didn't they?"

She stared up at the building, situated on a lonely knoll in the outskirts of the town. A shabby outfit, from the outside—architecturally speaking it was what her grandmother would describe as a 'slap-dash job'—and all boarded up.

"Where are we? What is this?"

"The secret to how we're getting into the castle—without running into—you-know-who." Sirius grimaced. "They call it the 'Shrieking Shack'."

Her face lit up.

"Oh yes—yes, I heard the stories." Colette turned back, more eagerly. "It is supposed to be a very haunted building, _non_?"

"Emphatically _non_." He grinned one of his secret grins. She was fast becoming used to them, and rather than being annoyed, Colette only found herself wanting in on the joke. "Alas—it's not haunted at all. People only _think_ it is."

"Narcissa told me about it." She frowned. "Your mother didn't seem to put much stock in the rumors. Nor did Professor Slughorn."

"Yes, well—he knows better." He changed the subject, abruptly. "Want to see inside?"

She looked back up at the ramshackle building, more uneasy now.

"If it is not haunted, I cannot see what would be of interest in such a drafty place."

He laughed.

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to find out, won't you?" He lifted up one arm in a theatrical pose, gesturing towards the roughly-hewn steps that lead up to the Shack.

Colette hesitated.

"What's the matter—don't you trust me?"

He had been in his element all afternoon, ever since he stepped out of the fireplace of the Hog's Head. It had bolstered the natural confidence—the confidence flagging of late, to meet her here, and he was sure she was charmed and disarmed by his stories—as all girls must be, in the end. Sirius leaned back on his heels, fully expecting a quip—the usual line birds gave him about Sirius being shifty, who could trust a face like that, a tongue as fast as he was—

"With my life."

When Colette Battancourt spoke, with that clear-eyed, simple frankness he had still not gotten used to—an honesty that bordered on painful—Sirius felt the impact of her words like a sharp blow to the stomach. He was sure they were not intended that way—that the solemness with which Colette pronounced them was natural, for they were followed by a puzzled look, as if she couldn't quite understand why he'd asked the question.

It doesn't occur to her not to.

Sirius realized, in that moment, what he'd found—a completely guileless, trusting soul.

The revelation was not a comforting one.

 _"_ _So, when you say—'very pressing need for cover', Sirius—am I to_ always _assume you've got a date?" Remus watched him with the world-weariness of a man at least fifteen years his senior. "Just checking."_

 _"_ _For the last time, this is official Order business," Sirius said, stuffing his cloak in his bag. It wouldn't do to get his new leather jacket wet with snow—anyway, Scotland would be freezing. If the cloak was a bit small, well—it was better than wearing one of Orion's dusty cast-offs. "I have an appointment with Albus Dumbledore."_

 _"_ _Yes—in four hours." Sirius blew air through his lips, dismissively. "_ He _asked me to come here and cover for you, first. Does he know you've been avoiding this flat like the plague for days?"_

 _Sirius snapped the bag shut and looked up._

 _"_ _Listen, Moony." He stuffed a brightly-colored crisp packet in his pockets. "You didn't have to come. You've could've ignored the owl, and then I'd have called Lily and been spared this rather tedious lecture."_

 _"_ _The only reason you_ didn't _is you know James will have realized the cloak is gone by now, and he'll want to know why you've taken it."_

 _Sirius dropped his bag and cloak in one rather dramatic heap on floor. Remus, long inured to the effects of his friend's temper tantrums, watched the display impassively._

 _"_ _Remus—I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm having a_ bit _of a crap week."_

 _Lupin sighed._

 _"_ _I've noticed." His smile was thin and forced. "You're not exactly good at hiding that sort of thing."_

 _Sirius pulled a cigarette out from his sleeve and stuck it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth._

 _"_ _Understanding that—and knowing many of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding said crap week—I was thinking maybe you could work your way around to cutting me a bit of slack."_

 _Sirius raised his wand and singed the tip of the fag, inhaled and exhaling a curling ring of smoke. He had shown the trick to Lupin when they were fifteen._

 _Remus was less impressed with it now._

 _"_ _Sirius—"_

 _"_ _I need this, alright?" He snapped, losing his temper. "I need to get out of here. I need to—blow off some steam."_

 _"_ _I'm…sympathetic." Lupin carefully chose his next words. "It's just—how you've decided to achieve that which gives me…pause."_

 _"_ _Just spit it out."_

 _Remus paused._

 _"_ _I don't think you going to meet this girl is a very good idea."_

 _"_ _If it makes you feel better, she agrees with you."_

 _Oddly enough, if it didn't seem to comfort Sirius's friend._

 _"_ _If you want to let off some steam—" He collapsed on the sofa. "Just…make up with James, take the night off and get blasted."_

 _The look Sirius fixed his friend with was rather cool._

 _"_ _This is a change!" Sirius took another long drag, savoring the taste of cheap tobacco and the smell that would surely stir his mother's ire the next time she was in here. Hopefully it would reek of the stuff by then. "You must think I'm in a bad way, to suggest always say I drink too much and am very unpleasant when I do."_

 _The difficult thing about their friendship—that friendship that was, in many ways, the most difficult of any of them—was that Remus only ever worked up the nerve to stand up to Sirius when a hard truth needed to be said, and his friend had such a natural gift for cut-downs that it only made Lupin less likely to do it in future._

 _The law of diminishing friendship._

 _"_ _Better that than corrupting some poor witch staying with your parents."_

 _Sirius let out an ungentlemanly snort._

 _"'_ _Corrupting'? Merlin, you sound like my mother." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'm not_ corrupting _her. For your information, I'm rescuing her from a loveless marriage with a Death Eater."_

 _"_ _Well—ex-Death Eater, in one case." Lupin winced a little at the glare Sirius gave him. "You_ did _say it was Rabastan or Regulus she was told to go for."_

 _Sirius was beginning to regret telling him anything—except information had been all he had in return for the myriad of favors Remus had done him in the last few days, and when push came to shove, Moony_ was _a good listener._

 _And so, Remus now knew—if not everything, most everything. Sirius had made a point of keeping out all details that concerned him, at any rate._

 _It was better Moony not know what he suspected his father did._

 _"_ _An arranged marriage with either a Death Eater or a git," Sirius amended, briskly. "Six of one, half dozen of the—"_

 _"—_ _You know very well squiring her around behind your Mum's back is a bad idea." Lupin stood up._

 _"_ _Since when has that ever stopped me before?"_

 _"_ _She was staying with Malfoy as his wife's personal guest before she was staying with your parents." He sighed. "Even James would agree with me you're playing with dire."_

 _His mouth twisted up—the smile strained._

 _"_ _You're taking this all too seriously," Sirius informed him, breezily. "The whole thing is just a—lark. A harmless bit of fun."_

 _"_ _If it were a harmless bit of fun, you wouldn't be so keen to do it."_

 _The observation stung. Sirius turned around—expression sharpened. It was a look his friend knew well—a sign of his lightning temper, barely controlled._

 _"_ _Why are you so defensive of this bird, anyway? You don't even know her."_

 _"_ _I know_ you _." Remus cleared his throat. "A lot better than she does. I know what you're like around women—and I know how_ they _are around you."_

 _"_ _Jealous, Remus?"_

 _"_ _Who wouldn't be?" Lupin's face was pale beneath his fringe—the dark circles around his eyes aged him. "For once I'm more worried about_ you _, than her. Don't you have enough on your plate without managing a fling—never mind the company she's been keeping?"_

 _"_ _I told you, it's not like that." He adjusted his hair in the mirror. "It's not…personal. She's not my type. "_

 _"_ _You're every girl's type." He cleared his throat, significantly. "And you know what I meant. "_

 _The flat had already been stifling—Regulus had shut himself up in the bath an hour ago (theoretically he was going to run one, though Sirius hadn't heard it. Was this a new and creative way for his younger brother to express displeasure with him—staging a toilet sit-in?)_

 _Sirius let out a long and turned around to face his friend. Better to throw Remus a bone—rare though it was, when something was on Moony's mind, he could be annoyingly tenacious about it._

 _He didn't miss the fish-wife lectures from their dormitory days._

 _"_ _You want to know the truth—the_ real _reason I'm doing this?" He stubbed his cigarette against the ash tray. "I feel sorry for her. She's about to her throw her life away, and I'm the only one who's bollocksed to show her she's got another choice. Anyone in my position would do the same."_

 _"_ _Yeah, we've got budding knight errant out our ears, these days."_

 _"_ _So_ cynical _, Moony." Sirius tutted. "Doesn't suit you."_

 _Remus watched him toss the cigarette carelessly on the floor and stamp it—an elegant gesture—effective, in its way._

 _"_ _Does this really have_ nothing _to do with pissing off your mum?"_

 _"_ _For fuck's sake, why can't it be_ both _?"_

 _Sirius slung his bag on his shoulder and crossed the room to the door. All he wanted was to put as much distance between himself and Remus as possible, to leave before Moony got a chance to change his mind again. He felt penned in, shut up—constrained, but all he could think was that this was yet another person in his life he'd managed to piss off._

 _He could count the number he hadn't on a thumb._

 _"_ _It's good to know you think so little of me." He wrenched the door open. "Since you seem to share my dad's opinions, why don't you go have a chat with him? You were keen yesterday. I give you permission to skive off. You can pay him a visit in his_ lair _."_

 _"_ _Siri—!"_

He'd slammed the door shut before Remus could even finish the word.

The glimpse he'd gotten of Moony's face told all the story he needed. His friend would probably offer to watch the flat for a week, after that—Remus collapsed like a house of cards, when push came to shove. Sirius couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd said, all the same.

"You shouldn't hold yourself so cheaply, Ms. Battancourt."

The seriousness of an oath when he had been expecting light flirtation had taken him aback, and he felt himself drawing away—consciously. The whole idea of it—what he had told Remus less two hours before he needed—the hand held out, the mock-courtly mannerisms, the play-game they were engaged in all seemed colossally stupid in that moment. He had an immediate sense of displacement, of not understanding how he'd gotten there, what he thought he was doing.

Then she smiled at him, and he remembered.

"I don't." The shocking blue eyes widened. "I think no harm will come to me when I am with you, that is all. What's odd about that?"

 _I lied to you about who I was, Colette. I've been lying to you the entire time we've known each other._

"Only that _you_ have more faith in me than my closest friends."

The crease between her eyes furrowed, and Sirius felt a stab of guilt for being the cause of that distortion. It made her look older—somewhere along the way to world-weary, and the last thing he wanted to take from her was her innocence.

"I _doubt_ that is true, Monsieur Black."

"I—" He ran his hand through his hair. "Maybe not. I only meant…" He forced a smile. "Well, you said it yourself—since we've known each other, all I've done is _deceive_ you. And yet, you still showed up today…"

She pursed her lips, accentuating that puzzled expression which suited her delicate features.

"Well, you had your reasons…" Colette twisted a tendril of hair around her finger. "And—I believe you truly wish to make amends for your abominable fibs."

Sirius laughed.

"Has anyone ever told you you're too trusting, Miss Battancourt?"

She crinkled her nose.

"Only all my family." Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "If you ask _me_ , there is no such thing."

"That does it." Sirius grasped Colette's hand and pulled her along up the path. "We're going through with this—if for no other reason than a week spent in my company should be just enough time to teach you not to believe a word I say."

"Do you expect me to lose faith in you, the longer I know you?"

"Everyone does."

Colette laughed—a high, tinkling sound, like a clear bell at the break of dawn.

Sirius liked the sound. It was fresh, unaffected—and he intuitively understood that she would not have laughed like that for anyone.

"Perhaps you should consider whether or not you are encouraging them in that."

He stifled a laugh and increased the pressure on her hand.

A pure soul, as untouched as the snow that surrounded the rickety building she was following him into.

"What do your friends call you, Colette?"

"By my name—which I have not yet given you permission to use," she reminded him, saucily.

"Oh, that's right." A pause. "Well—how about nicknames? What do you think of 'Lettie'?"

"It's very impertinent."

He winked.

"We'll work on it. Can't give an authoress a name she doesn't like."

Heart lightened, Sirius pulled the door open with another laugh—relishing in how far outside of the village they were, and the feeling of freedom—however illusory it might be.

He was so engrossed, he didn't notice the rustle in the bushes, or the familiar pair of tufted ears peaking out of the bushes near the shack as they entered.

* * *

 **Happy Halloween! Sorry there's not spookier content in this chapter (unless House Elf as chaperone is considered spooky.) As always, comments appreciated.**


	20. Chapter 20

_"'_ _You shouldn't have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in answer to Harry's questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl. I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too."_

 _"_ _Which was your House?"_

 _"_ _I was Head of Slytherin," said Slughorn. "Oh, now," he went on quickly, seeing the expression on Harry's face and wagging a stubby finger at him, "don't go holding that against me!'"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 20**

* * *

The silhouette—a strong, distinct profile, visible through the fogged glass of her kitchen door—was so familiar to her that it didn't even occur to Lily that it might be unwise to enthusiastically fling it open for her dear friend, as she always did when he came by the cottage.

"Padfoot, darling, did you bring that cloak back, or—?"

Mrs. Potter's greeting died in her throat with a noise as abrupt (and undignified) as that of a frog being strangled.

"Good afternoon."

The voice that spoke was calm, aristocratic—polite to a fault.

It did _not_ belong to her friend.

"Mr.—Mr. Black—" Lily hastily adjusted her hair, coming undone from the plait she'd put it in hours before. "I'm sorry, it's just—through the window you looked—well, I thought you were _Sirius_."

The middle-aged man—tall, dark-haired, expression implacable—blinked down at her.

Up until then, Lily hadn't known it was _possible_ to blink haughtily.

"Are you expecting my son?" he asked, retaining that placid manner she found so unnerving.

 _Not anymore than I was expecting you,_ Lily thought, tucking a strand of flyaway red hair back behind her ear. He was the last person she would have expected to show up on her doorstep in any circumstance. Was something wrong? Was he looking for Sirius? Knowing what a difficult time her husband's best friend had been having since their reunion, she was grateful she didn't have to lie about his whereabouts.

"No—though he _does_ sometimes like to pop in unexpectedly." Lily forced a smile that she was sure looked more like a grimace. "It's a bit annoying, really. I've had to talk to my husband about it. We can't seem to get rid of him."

Orion smiled back, politely—though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"That's not a problem we share, of course."

Something in her lower stomach churned unpleasantly.

Mr. Black tilted his head, slowly—a hard smile fixed on his face. He seemed, from their limited acquaintance, to be the sort of man who would draw out an awkward moment as a form of punishment, but to her surprise, it was he who broke the silence.

"It's been a long time since I've been in Godric's Hollow." Orion looked over his shoulder, then back at her. "It's changed—very little."

"I wasn't—" Lily found herself caught off-guard by his sudden bout of courtesy—and disarmed as a result. It was very different from his manners the night they'd met. "Do you—know the village well, then?"

The older man offered a modest shrug.

"I spent some time here when I was younger. I had a great-aunt on my mother's side who lived down the lane."

"Sirius has never mentioned having any _family_ here."

Mr. Black made a noncommittal sort of noise—something between a 'hn' and 'harumph.'

"He wouldn't know much about it—she died a year before he was born." His eyes lingered on the hedgerows that separated the cottage from the house across the lane. "I—thought I saw Bathilda Bagshot a moment ago."

The change in subject—however abrupt—was a welcome one.

"Yes—I'm sure you did. She's our neighbor, just there." Lily brightened up. "She's very sweet to us. A dear woman. Sometimes I'll see her puttering about in the garden—do you know her?"

"Only by…reputation," Mr. Black rejoined, dryly. "A witch of…some _distinction,_ I believe."

The way he pronounced the word suggested it was not entirely to his taste.

"Yes, she's—certainly that," Lily agreed, lamely. "Known the country over."

Having run out of things in the vicinity to remark upon politely, Mr. Black merely nodded. Lily couldn't help but stare. He wasn't much taller than his eldest son, but he seemed to entirely fill the doorway of her kitchen by his mere presence—understated as it was. Perhaps it was the way he held himself—Victorian and upright, every inch of him, from head to well-shod shoe, firmly controlled.

It was a far cry from the sinewy Sirius, always in motion, rarely in obvious control of _anything_.

And yet—in Lily's estimation, at least—Sirius would have looked far less out of place than his father _anywhere_. To her, Orion Black seemed a man outside of time—and the effect was more arresting than a stranger standing on her doorstep.

It was like being visited by an accidental time-traveler.

His hat had begun to droop in the rain.

"Dreary weather," Orion remarked, stiffly. "Unusual for Dorset, is it?"

Lily felt the color flood her cheeks.

"Oh! It is, rather—Mr. Black, I—" She stepped aside. "—I'm so daft—my head isn't on straight these days—please, _do_ come in."

He had brushed past her and entered her untidy kitchen before the invitation had left her lips.

Lily had to restrain herself from the natural urge to apologize for the mess—the way his sharp gaze immediately zeroed in on her untidy kitchen table, stacked with dishes, almost demanded it.

"Do you _often_ entertain in here?"

 _We don't often entertain at all._

"No, of course not—" Lily raised her hand in the direction of the hall and waved it, vaguely. "That is—I mean—the sitting room is just through there."

Orion didn't wait for her to lead him into said room, instead taking off at a brisk clip in the direction she had pointed him. Mrs. Potter followed close behind, unable to shake the amusing thought that, for all his formality and austere manner of speaking, Mr. Black was not _so_ different from his son when it came to barging in to other peoples' houses unannounced.

She hadn't seen him since that night—the night she had witnessed a most fraught father-son reunion, among other wonders. A week on from those dramatic events, and she had little insight into what he was thinking or who he was.

All she had was her husband's mad theories to go on—and his son's word.

She trusted neither.

The moment they entered the room Mr. Black made a beeline to mantle, strewn with photographs and mementos from the past year of her and James's life—mostly of their wedding and final year at school. She was struck by the odd sense of purpose lost when he made it there— _this far, but no farther_ —and just as quickly her confusion gave way to sympathy.

It was probably seeing him in daylight—albeit the gray dull afternoon of early winter—that made him seem so tired and aged since that night. Perhaps he had not come, as she initially suspected, to look for Sirius—or if he had, not finding his eldest son, he had stayed for some _other_ reason.

Whatever that was, for whatever reason—his nature, perhaps, or the circumstances that had brought them, however tangentially, into each other's lives—he could not bring himself to ask for he needed outright. Was it advice he was looking for? A sympathetic ear?

Her optimistic nature grabbed onto the idea and refused to let it go.

"Well, Mr. Black—" Lily clasped her hands together and sat down on the sofa. "—What can I do for you?"

He didn't turn around.

"Some _refreshment_ wouldn't do amiss."

Both her eyebrows went up in unison at _this_. Lily didn't know if it was studied or natural, but everyone in Sirius's family had the most amazing talent for turning any statement, however benign, into an imperious order—while simultaneously couching it in such polite dry language so as to render all objections to both the request and its delivery null.

Which left _her_ in the odd position of being on the back-foot with a man she'd only met once who'd dropped into her home unannounced and demanded cake.

"Oh! Oh, I'm _so_ sorry—" She wasn't, in fact. She had been about to take a nap when he'd showed up, she hadn't invited this man to her house, she certainly wouldn't have had hair pins sticking out of her head if she _had_. "Would you like a cup—"

"—Tea. Cream, no sugar."

She hurried off to the kitchen, if for no other reason than to spare herself the agony of mindless gibbering in his presence.

"Not exactly ' _Mr. Charmer'_ , are you?" Lily muttered, pulling down an old box of PG Tips from the top of the cupboard. "Sorry we don't have a _butler_ on retainer."

Lily's sympathy for Sirius's situation was growing by the minute. As she rooted about the cupboards, looking to see if they still had that box of chocolate biscuits that Mr. Black's son liked so well—she wondered at how Sirius had turned out the way he had, given the mother and father God had deigned to give him. She found it difficult to imagine anyone, let alone Padfoot, ever relaxing around someone _this_ uptight.

 _No wonder Sirius went bonkers at school._

Of course—she thought, more circumspect, as she filled the kettle with water—maybe it was just his way of holding people at arm's length. Mrs. Potter noticed Regulus doing the same thing every time she went by the flat, though he was clearly not as good at the act as his father—at least not _yet_.

 _Be nice. Don't rise to the bait._

She lit the fire on the stove and walked back into the sitting room, resolved to be polite at any cost—and to not lose her temper.

At the sound of footsteps Orion turned around. His full eyebrows raised just slightly when he noticed her empty hand. Not enough to be rude by any _civilized_ metric, but pointed all the same.

"The kettle's on," Lily explained, all cheerfulness. "I—like to do it the old-fashioned way, you see."

He stared at her.

"I'm sorry?"

"I always boil it over when I use my wand—I suppose I don't know my own strength. And there's something very cozy about waiting for a kettle to boil, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't know." Lily sank back into the sofa. Mr. Black remained standing, leaning heavily against the mantle. "This is a…very comfortable cottage."

Lily watched him as he stared—and avoided looking at her as much as possible, in favor of examining the photos on the mantle and furniture.

Didn't think much of her using a stove, did he?

"It belonged to my husband's parents. They lived here when they were first married—then when James came along they moved to the larger house, seven miles outside the village. He's mad about Quidditch, I think that was the reason. They wanted to give him space to fly." She smiled and looked around at the old-fashioned floral wallpaper. "But they kept this place, and when we were married they…gave it to us as a wedding present."

She noticed the picture his eyes had rested on and stood up.

" _That's_ one of my favorites."

The photograph was black and white and framed in silver, and it had a place of preeminence on the mantle by virtue of its expensive frame—a gift, clearly, when compared to the more modest offerings that surrounded it. It was of her and James the last Christmas they'd spent at Hogwarts, though her then-boyfriend was fighting to keep in the frame. Their corpulent potions professor had managed to squeeze his way between the young lovers, and was all but muscling the poor Head Boy out altogether.

Smiling, Lily walked up behind him and picked up the frame.

"Professor Slughorn wasn't quite sure about James, yet, you see." She ran her thumb over the edge of her poor husband's leg, hidden by the silver frame. "He's always been very protective of me. I would have asked him to give me away at my wedding, if I'd thought he could stand to let go, in the end."

"I take it you were a favorite of Professor Slughorn."

Not knowing him, Lily wasn't able to tell if that hint of something in the voice was amusement or sarcasm. She chose to believe it was the former.

"He used to tell me all the time I ought to have been in Slytherin," she said, with a laugh. "He has many ideas of what I should be doing with my career. I think I've turned out a great disappointment to him."

"In what respect?"

"Oh, in marrying young, you know. He wanted me to go into _politics_ , of all things."

She laughed at just the thought of her professor's ridiculous ambitions for his star student—and when she turned to Orion, to her delight, she saw a softening around the stern mouth, even the trace of a smile.

"Horace Slughorn has _particular_ ideas about what all his former pupils should be doing," he told her, dryly. "He never gives them up, I'm afraid to say."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." She tapped her fingers on the mantle. "Were _you_ in the Slug Club, too?"

"He's a great friend of my father," Mr. Black said, vaguely—as if that fact answered the question for itself. "And of course, everyone in the family's had him as Head of House."

"Except Sirius."

At this, Mr. Black's smile flattened.

"Except Sirius," he agreed, after a short pause. "Anyway, he was in and out of the house before the boy started at school."

She set the photograph gently back in its place of honor.

"He's very fond of Sirius, anyway." Lily leaned her back against the mantle and smiled fondly at the picture of her wedding day, next to it. "He wanted to 'collect' him. Of course, Sirius is always putting him off."

His silvery-gray eyes flickered with some emotion she couldn't identify.

"I notice this is just about the only photograph my son _isn't_ in."

It was true—their wedding portrait, snapshots from the last year of school—and the Christmas picture of the Potters' celebration three years before she thought should be burning, from how hard Orion Black was staring at it. It had never even occurred to her that he was in every other one.

Sirius was so much a part of their lives, so much a part of _their_ family, it had never seemed strange before.

Now, it did.

"Sirius was invited to that party, too." She frowned, looking back at her own smiling face—the face of a far more innocent girl than the one standing in front of Orion Black now. "But he refused to come—I don't remember why."

"I imagine he thought _we_ would be there."

Mrs. Potter's insides curdled like milk.

"We're always invited to that party, you see." He paused. "Given the circumstances, I doubt the prospect of facing his mother would have much attraction for him."

A heavy silence followed—then the shrill whistle of a kettle in the distance, and Lily, pale-faced and awkward, mumbled something about fixing up his tea before hurrying out of the room again.

* * *

"See?" He pointed to the initials—his own, S.B.—delicately carved into a supporting beam with such elegance that they would have put most magical calligraphers to shame. "I _told_ you I'd been in here before."

"I never doubted you."

He hopped down from the stool he'd propped up against the wall.

"Not out _loud_ , but you had that _look_ you get that says you think you're being fed a _tall tale_."

Miss Battancourt tossed her head.

"I have no such look," Colette said, loftily.

"You do, in fact. You're wearing it right now."

Sirius grinned down at her, but she was too busy examining a chair that had been cleaved in half to notice.

The Shrieking Shack had accumulated a healthy amount of dust and grime in the year and half since it had last been used for the purpose it had been built—but as Professor Dumbledore had evidently not seen fit to send in the cleaners, the vestiges of seven years housing a werewolf on the full moon remained.

Naturally, Colette had questions.

"Don't worry." He bent down beside the girl, crouched on the floor and studying a doorknob that had been ripped off the wall and thrown so hard it was dented. "What did _that_ is long gone."

Colette looked up—no trace of fear in her eyes—only curiosity.

Sirius rather _wished_ she was a _little_ more afraid to be in the house.

"What _happened_ in here?"

He'd been stealing himself for this moment since the idea had first occurred to him they should get into the school grounds this way. The passage in Honeydukes would've probably been a safer choice, as far as having to explain himself.

He didn't much like safe choices.

Anyway, this was more impressive.

"Look…I _would_ tell you…"

"…But…it's a secret?" She finished for him, archly.

Sirius pulled her up from the floor before she could protest—letting go of her hand at the appropriate time (for propriety's sake, of course!) and gesturing that she should follow him down to the passage that he and James and Peter had taken so many times.

There was a delicate balance to be struck here.

"Yes, but in _this_ case, it's not mine to tell." He started down the stairs that lead to the tunnel. "It's the secret of a friend of mine, and to tell you the truth, sometimes I think he doesn't like that _I_ know."

"You have a very mysterious life."

She followed him closely, for the words were little more than a whisper in his ear—what was it about old houses that made people whisper?—and when Sirius stopped to jump over the the broken step, he felt her small frame bump gently into his.

"Easy there!" Sirius called over his shoulder. "You'll want to watch your—"

She had lit the tip of her wand—even in the dark her blue eyes shone clearly. The French girl lifted her skirts and leapt gracefully over the bottom step and landed a little unsteadily at his side.

"And _you_ have many secrets."

"I _do_ not. I am an—open book." He kicked the door to the secret passageway open with one foot. "You might not know that idiom, as is it is _très anglaise,_ but it _means_ you can ask me anything."

" _Anything_?"

"Yes, when I say _anything_ , I _mean_ —"

"Why did you say Rabastan Lestrange was a 'brutal thug'?"

He pushed the door open and entered the passage without ceremony.

"It gets narrow down here," Sirius said, loudly, pretending to have not heard her. "So you want to watch your head."

"Only—you said as much at the party—" She ducked her dead down and continued, unabated, "But you never explained what you _meant,_ precisely."

"You really have an amazing memory," Sirius grumbled. "For every passing remark I make."

"Can I help it if what you say is memorable?"

"Don't try to flatter me! It's extremely irritating, this habit of bringing things up from—from the heat of the moment." He stopped walking and turned around. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"My grandmother is fond of mentioning it," replied, matter-of-factly. "Most every time I see her."

His mouth split into an involuntary smile.

"Nosy witches get stitches, right?"

Colette tilted her head and tried to look innocent.

"She says that my tongue often overtakes my head."

"Sounds like we have the same problem." He let out lip bubbles. "I said a lot of things that night, if you recall. I also told you to avoid my mother, but you didn't listen to that, did you?"

"I didn't _know_ she was your mother at the time. And anyway—" She crossed her arms. "That was different. You didn't say she was dangerous."

"It was implied, believe me."

Colette pursed her lips and frowned—Sirius sighed. He had a feeling she wouldn't keep walking until he gave her a better answer.

This was a tough case. Usually a dazzling smile and a few flattering remarks were enough to make _any_ girl forget half the nonsense that came out of his mouth. He had never met a female with such an acute gift for sussing out the words said in the heat of the moment that he wanted to discuss _least_ and refusing to let them go.

Well, there was _one_ other woman, but as she had given birth to him, it was hardly a fair comparison.

Not so with Colette, though. Every time he thought he had a handle on her she'd spring up with some comment or pull some cutting observation from out of nowhere.

Worst of all, she was almost as stubborn as him.

"I only meant that—when they were at school—he and his brother Rodolphus had a…bit of a reputation, that's all."

They resumed their journey, each holding out a lit wand to guide the way.

"A reputation for what?"

 _Attacking muggleborns every chance they got._

"Oh, getting in fights, a lot of illegal hexes—there were disciplinary hearings, and Rodolphus was nearly expelled in seventh year." He tried to keep his voice light and casual—refrain from the distaste he would have openly shared had it been James or Remus he was talking to. "Of course, old man Lestrange was on the board of the governors of the school, so he got off. Rabastan didn't have anything like that, as far as I know, but he's always been a…follower."

"Is that really all?"

He almost ran straight into an exposed tree root jutting though the stone of the tunnel.

"Isn't that enough?"

"It's only…" She hesitated. "You seemed more dire about it that night. I felt you were very much trying to put me off—on peril of something sinister."

Sirius swore under his breath. Fantastic. He'd gone for the melodramatic ending line, not knowing she was a writer and would want the backstory that made the plot make sense.

"I _realize_ you're not that picky on the husband front, but even _Narcissa_ is trying to put you off—and you can't deny it, because I was hiding in a toilet stall and forced to hear my cousin opining on her brother-in-law's family all being thicker than dragon scale." He snorted. "Why do you think she's pushing Regulus at you?"

"Narcissa is my friend." Colette hesitated. "She—she only wants the best for me."

"She _wants_ you to marry into her family. Marry the future head of it, in fact."

A pause—only the whistle of the wind through the cave broke the silence.

"You think I cannot trust her?"

He would have dearly liked to tell her she should very much stay on her guard about her budding friendship with Mrs. Malfoy, but Sirius had a feeling _that_ would lead to a great deal more questions than he wanted to answer, at present.

"Far be it from _me_ to impugn Narcissa's motives, but—" He sighed. "In this world—in _our_ world—if somebody is trying to marry you to anyone but themselves, believe me, there's _always_ an ulterior motive."

He expected her to get defensive at that—it would have been the natural reaction—but instead she just got very quiet.

"At least you acknowledge it's 'our' world and not merely mine."

Sirius froze, mid-step.

"It was…a slip of the tongue."

They fell into an uneasy silence, made especially awkward by the darkness.

"I don't think we should discuss my…we shouldn't speak of marriage anymore," Colette said, after a little while. Her voice was muted. "We will only fall out."

"That hardly seems fair, since I'm trying to talk you out of it." The reply didn't get so much as a giggle, and he was suddenly very glad for the blackness of the tunnel. "Fine. I'll agree—conditionally."

There would be plenty of time to work on her on that score, Sirius thought, especially if today went well.

" _While_ we're on the subject of our agreement," he continued, briskly. "I've been thinking about the practical side."

She asked him, rather stiffly, to what he was referring.

"Your grand tour of Great Britain, of course! Courtesy of me. I think we should agree upon a few rules before we begin. If I'm going to introduce you to my associates, we must have our stories straight."

"I am not going to _lie_."

"It's less a matter of lying than—leaving some bits strategically out." He ducked his head down to avoid the part of the ceiling that was partially caved in. "You can't tell anyone you meet that you're staying with my parents, for a start."

She shuddered.

"I don't think your mother would like that very much. Or Narcissa."

At the mention of his distinguished cousin, Sirius pulled a face.

"Nor would I. My friends don't mix with hers, see?" _True, if an understatement._ "Besides, it would spoil everything—prejudice them against you."

"I don't see why you always speak so ill of your own cousin."

It was no different than how he spoke about the rest of his family—at least, that was what he was tempted to say, but he refrained.

"How do you like her husband?" Sirius asked, turning it back on her. Colette hesitated in a most telling fashion.

"I—don't know him very well," she said, diplomatically.

"Come now, Mademoiselle Battancourt—you are a great study of human foibles, are you not? Paint a picture for me."

He held his hand out to keep her from slipping on a stray patch of ice.

"Slick, isn't he?" He filled in for her, when no answer seemed forthcoming. "Don't worry—nobody in my family cares much for old Lucius. You don't have to lose sleep over any unflattering opinions you might keep in your heart." He grinned and turned around. In the dim light of her wand, Colette's face had a distinctly elfin quality.

"Have you heard the story about his father and Nobby Leach?"

"Who?"

"Our distinguished ex-head of government, of course."

It was a tale full of twists, sinisterness and color, and quite enough to fill up the rest of their journey. Sirius took great pleasure in how luridly fascinating she found the old political scandal surrounding the nation's first muggle-born Minister for Magic and Abraxas Malfoy's hand in removing him from office.

"And you say—nothing was ever proven?"

"Oh, no—the Malfoys are very good at covering their tracks." They reached the narrow entrance—Sirius cursed his inability to turn into a dog. It would have been easier to wriggle through. "Are you surprised?"

"No," she answered, honestly. "He seems like a man who knows his own mind."

Sirius, who'd been climbing up the slippery entrance to the hole so that he could ensure the Willow was under control before pulling him up, turn back around. He smiled at her candidness.

She was more innocent than she had any right to be—but less naive than she looked.

"Let me check to see if the coast is clear."

Sirius stuck his head out and—seeing the magnificent sloping lawn of the castle grounds covered in an untouched foot of snow—he, after properly immobilizing the mad tree that was built over the entrance—beckoned Colette Battancourt to follow him up.

As soon as she poked her head out she gasped.

"That was my reaction the first time I saw it, too." He breathed in and out, feeling little concern for the bracing cold. Colette scrambled out of the passage in between the branches—nearly falling, he pretended not to notice—and climbed up beside him on the exposed root of the massive willow. He cheeks were pink with excitement, and he found himself touched by her unaffected delight.

Sirius could feel the excitement himself. A sense of warmth, familiarity—it had been too long since he'd been back. He had an overwhelming sense of gratitude that she had agreed to come with him.

It took seeing Hogwarts again for Sirius to realize he hadn't wanted to come back here alone.

And it had been worth the risks to come this way. He'd always been of the opinion that this spot—this exact angle—was the best possible view of Hogwarts Castle.

Perfect for a first impression.

"So, I figure—for now we take a tour of the grounds—" _I tell you all my best, funniest stories, at which you laugh uproariously._ "Just until we can be sure it's safe—"

"Safe from what?"

He scratched his head.

" _You_ know—from my mother and company." Sirius shook his dark hair out of his eyes. "Until they're safely in Slughorn's quarters, we can't just go gadding about the castle. D'you _want_ to run into them?"

"Of course not." She flushed and fiddled with her sleeves. Sirius's mouth twitched. For somebody who had been so gun-shy about meeting him for this excursion the night before, she certainly didn't seem worried about running into her chaperone. "I…I wasn't thinking."

 _Still waters run wild when you aren't looking, I guess._

He was not used to being the most cautious one in _any_ conversation. Perhaps his initial instincts about her—that she had a reckless streak, under that well-bred facade—were not so far off the money.

He told her that he was certain the expedition party would retire to Professor Slughorn's dungeon quarters—he had by far the largest personal suite of any on staff—and would probably leave by way of his fireplace. If she was worried, the two of them had the invisibility cloak for when they ventured inside the castle.

"One of us could use it—or, if you're really worried, both of us can fit underneath."

She neither blushed nor scowled at him for this impertinent remark (how disappointing!) Instead, Colette looked down at her feet, still perched delicately on the tree roots, and up and across the perfectly untouched snow that surrounded the Willow—with dismay.

"Oh _no—the snow—my dress—"_ She gestured wildly all around them—from her skirts, to the foot of fresh white powder that surrounded them, which had not yet had a convenient path leading from the tree to the rest of the grounds carved out of it.

Ah—he understood. Of course, if Sirius were less gallant where the fairer sex was concerned, he might've asked why she hadn't worn a more rugged ensemble for their excursion (she did seem the practical type, and not terribly interested in what she wore.)

"It's silk…" Her face fell to a state of utter dejection. "It will be ruined."

She looked so morose, he couldn't help but tease her.

"It will sacrificed in the name of a grand adventure."

"I do not think it very funny!" Colette huffed. "It is brand new! And it was a very expensive gift from my mother and…and it's very…pretty."

It was hard to take her tirade seriously when even _she_ lost confidence in it halfway through.

"Pretty, eh? Let me be the judge of that." Annoyed, she unbuttoned her cloak to show him. Sirius resisted the urge to let out the low whistle. It _was_ , in fact, very pretty—or rather, made her look prettier, a form fitting and stylish dark blue number that looked more like something Narcissa would've picked out.

"I will admit—it _is_ something out of the common way." She buttoned up her coat and shivered—Sirius grabbed her arm before she made the mistake of leaning back on the Willow. "But I don't think you care about the gown—not really. You're more worried about what your mother will say when she sees the hem was ruined."

Colette's lip trembled.

"You don't like it when your mother shouts at you _either,_ " she pointed out, tartly.

He raised his arms—the customary Sirius Black show of surrender. It was better they not argue on this point for too long—this spell he'd put on the Whomping Willow would only last so long.

"Alright—fair enough. That's a very unpleasant sensation for anyone to take." Her lip trembled again. "Don't spill tears over it, I was only joking! Nothing is going to ruin your dress. I have a spell that will do the trick."

He crouched down at her feet. Colette tilted her head downwards, and found him staring up at her, innocently.

"I know what this is going to _sound_ like—" He smiled. "—But I need you to lift up your cloak."

He placed his free hand over his eyes, but when Colette did as she was asked, he peaked—just at her ankles.

"Long woolen stockings. How sensible of you." He gently touched the edge of his wand to the delicate lace of the hem. " _Complicario_."

Her dress neatly folded itself up from the hem to just above her knee. and pressed itself flat against her legs.

"There! Now only your poor stockings will get soaked."

He stood up and dusted off his hands—all in a day's work. Colette clasped his hand gratefully—before releasing it again. She wiggled her legs, experimentally—and no doubt found that her dress was snugly secure and unlikely to break free, even were she to dance about in the snow.

Which Sirius would've quite enjoyed seeing, honestly.

"Why do you know that spell?"

"From necessity. On my grandparents' estate there was a stream—I used to wade in it in the summers, when I was younger. Needed to know—"

"—How to keep your misbehaving from your parents?" Colette finished, her voice mischievous.

Sirius's grin was broad as he leaped from the exposed roots of the tree into a pile of fresh snow, ankle deep.

"I don't worry about it anymore." He gave her an expectant look. "Come on—no excuse now."

She nodded and jumped—with a little more grace, perhaps—into the snow beside him.

"Ten out of ten—a perfect landing."

He offered his arm, in a fit of gallantry—face flush from the cold and something else, Colette took it, and off they went.

Sirius hardly knew where to begin. Like Hogsmeade, even inch of the school grounds had some happy association—so it was that they set off, in no particular direction, a lazy, rambling walk to match their conversation. Colette didn't mind this apparent aimlessness—she listened to his hodgepodge of historical guide and personal anecdote in good spirits and, perhaps sensing his desire to amuse her, laughed and encouraged him in what she called his 'flights of fancy.' No doubt she thought his entirely truthful stories of daring-do were made up. The thoughtfulness of the French witch's questions and her obvious curiosity about his school jaunts—for her own time at Beauxbatons had been marked by a stifling scrutiny from her extended family—suggested genuine interest over mere politeness. Colette was a very good listener—though Sirius found her to be a little difficult to draw out this time around, more on her guard than she had been that night they'd flown to Hampstead Heath.

 _It's because she knows who you are, now,_ an annoying voice whispered in his ear. _All good things come to an end._

There was _something_ different about her today, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

It had not even occurred to Sirius how close they were to the Forbidden Forest (so absorbed was he in telling her his theory about the pack of intelligent wolves who dwelt there) that it took the startling appearance of the enormous gamekeeper emerging twenty yards in front of them to jolt him out of conversation.

Colette instinctively grabbed his sleeve.

"Who is _that_?"

Hagrid was waving cheerily in their direction. Her companion's face split into a broad grin.

"One of the many quality people you've got to meet— _oi_ , Hagrid! Over here!"

Sirius thought the gamekeeper (eight feet tall and three men wide) _might_ prove intimidating to his companion—after all, she wasn't used to him, as every English witch and wizard of her age would be. But, to his amusement, there was not a trace of trepidation in her face or manners—only the usual polite curiosity.

"Sirius!" Hagrid clapped the younger man on the shoulder—Sirius sunk into the snow a few inches. "Been awhile since we've seen _you_ in these parts."

"You know how it is, Hagrid." He brushed the snow off his shoulders, casually. "I'm very busy these days."

Colette, overcome with shyness, hung back—until she saw the creature Hagrid had tethered to his arm.

"Oh, he is _darling_!" She exclaimed, when the bright gold unicorn foal, equally shy, poked his head around Hagrid's massive leg. "May I pet him—that is—how do you do, and may I pet your unicorn?"

Sirius, laughing, pulled her forward and made the necessary introductions. Rubeus Hagrid seemed quite tickled by the curtsy the young witch gave him, though not as tickled as Colette was by his charge. As soon as he gave permission she got to her knees next to the animal.

"Orphaned. Poor thing. Lost his mother, the others in the herd won't look after 'em." Colette smoothed the short mane, then pulled an apple out of her bag. Her new friend nuzzled her hand.

"You know how to get in _his_ good books," Sirius observed, amused—she might've been planning for this, for all he knew.

"We keep horses on the farm. Unicorns are quite like Abraxan foals—and my grandmama has some on her estate, though they are wild, of course." There was no such thing as a tame unicorn—witches and wizards had been trying for centuries, but they could not be bred.

She tilted her head up to Hagrid—the bun had begun to fall out, giving her a pleasantly disheveled look.

"How will you take care of him?"

"Oh, pen him up and leave him out food for the winter. As little contact as possible, so he don't get used to thinking this is the right way." Hagrid patted his crossbow, thoughtfully. "But it'll be a lonely life for 'em, at first. It'd have been better if there'd been two orphaned—at least he'd have some company."

The unicorn let out a soft whinny.

"They're meant to be with their own kind."

The foal slipped out from under Colette's hand and trotted over to Sirius.

"He likes _you_ as well!" She observed, smiling.

"Yes, it's a well-known fact—" The foal rubbed up against his leg. "—That unicorns are excellent judges of character."

Sirius crouched down and rubbed the creature's flank, affectionately. Ever since he'd become an animagus, he'd noticed animals were more at ease around him—not just dogs, with whom he could, in a limited way, communicate. Magical creatures seemed to feel a particular affinity.

"Hello, chum." The foal nuzzled his snout into Sirius's pocket and pulled out a packet of crisps. "Clever boy, nicking my treat."

"You seem to be very good with animals."

Colette walked over to them, handing Sirius the rest of the apple, which he accepted, gratefully. Her met her eyes over the flank of the young unicorn. That stubborn lock of hair had fallen out again, and dangled over her rosy cheek. Sirius flexed his fingers. They itched to tuck it behind her ear.

"As a general rule, I prefer them to people." He stroked the foal under his chin—a paltry consolation, but it kept his hands busy. "Less…complicated."

She said nothing, and though he had deliberately turned his eyes downward, he could still feel the weight of that piercing gaze which saw everything and nothing, all at once.

"They prefer me, as well." He scratched the unicorn's soft ears. "You're a bit young to be going it alone, though, aren't you, chap?"

"Perhaps he senses a kindred spirit."

Their eyes met again—and Sirius felt an uncomfortable squirm in the pit of his stomach, as though she had seen something she oughtn't have.

Abruptly, he stood up. The foal, startled at the sudden movement, made a quick retreat behind Hagrid's legs.

"Got to get going, I'm afraid." His voice had cooled, considerably. "Appointment, up at the castle."

Hagrid blinked his beetle-black eyes in surprise.

"Oh?" His gaze dropped to Colette, then back to Sirius. "Only I figured—"

"It was good seeing you, Hagrid," Sirius interrupted, a little too loudly. "Have a good Christmas."

Colette, too, got to her feet—but it was with a slightly more uneasy feeling between them that the two continued the walk.

 _Come on_ , Sirius thought, resentment bubbling just below the surface—a veritable active volcano. _Ask. I know you want to, Miss Nosy Parker. It's what you've wanted to know since the first night._

"Madame Maxine—the headmistress of Beauxbatons—she is about as tall as your friend Monsieur Hagrid."

He stopped walking and turned to her, surprised. A slow smile spread across Colette's face.

 _Cheeky minx._

"She must have almost as interesting a family as he has. He didn't get that way from merely eating his vegetables."

It was an open secret that Hagrid was not entirely a wizard—or indeed, human—but Sirius had never been so impolite as to ask from whence in his family tree the enormous size and strength came from.

"He seems to know a great deal about caring for magical creatures," Colette said, approvingly. Sirius smiled.

"I keep forgetting you're a farm girl," he remarked, a few minutes later. "You don't seem the type."

"Why not?"

"Dunno. All that reading, I guess."

"When one grows up on a farm, reading is all there is to do."

She kicked at the snow, soaking her shoes straight through.

"Did you like growing up in the country?"

She tilted her head, considering the question.

"Well enough."

"I would think you'd prefer the city. More scope for the imagination _vis-e-vis_ your characters."

"Well—I don't know—each has their attractions."

"You know you're allowed to have preferences, right?" Sirius asked, a little put out. "At least with me. Do you like the city or the country better?"

She tugged at her scarf, attempting to hide a smile.

"It depends on the company!" Colette said, archly. "One can sometimes feel quite lonely in a crowded ballroom."

"Or quite the opposite, in, say—" He leaped onto a nearby stone. "—A snow-covered field in the dead of winter."

They had made it to the small patch of non-magical plants that grew outside the greenhouses. A pleasant meadow surrounded by trees. He had once caught Lily and James snogging here at lunch time when they thought they were alone—never had he known Evans' capacity to hex until that moment.

"You must've liked growing up in London," Colette remarked, after another long silence. "Otherwise you would not have chosen to settle there."

"How do _you_ know I live in London?"

Sirius turned towards her, startled. He couldn't remember mentioning that to her. He'd been very careful to be vague about the details of his life—despite thinking it was only inevitable she deduce he was.

"How far away from your parents' house is Lisson Grove?"

"My _mother_ didn't tell you I live there, did she?"

"I have my sources," Colette said, mysteriously. She was clearly enjoying his indignation. "How far?"

Colette had begun to draw patterns in the snow with her wand—little lace decorations, fanning out—the image of a heart, a leaf, a Christmas tree. Pretty, ladylike magic. There was something so unaccountably innocent about it—he could well imagine a much younger Colette, perhaps with a horse at her side, sneaking apples out her pocket while she traced angels and Father Christmases in the snow with her wand.

A pretty picture—and a lonely one. A picture from a fairy story.

 _The Loneliest Princess._

"If you must know, little snoop—it's quite close." He walked up beside her—she had drawn a large dog next to a cat. Even without color, he could easily squint his eyes and pretend it was black. "As to your earlier assertion, I like it much better now that I'm on my own. Before I felt—"

His voice faltered.

"You felt…how?" Colette prompted, gently.

Sirius let out a sigh—he could see his breath in the cold, and it gave him something to focus on beside those gentle, curious eyes.

" _Penned in_ ," he admitted, quietly. "A city of millions of people, right outside the door, and we were only allowed to socialize with about twenty of them. I remember…pressing my nose against the glass and seeing them, walking below—in cars, lorries—then I'd turn around and ask my parents questions they couldn't answer, only because they'd chosen to be so willfully ignorant of the people and things right _there,_ under their noses."

He expected her to argue, to ask him to explain what he meant—as had so often been the case when he had voiced his views to his family, they seemed almost incapable of understanding his frustrations—but instead, when he looked up, he found _her_ —listening without judgement.

"I never understood why we even lived in the city. I seemed to be the only one who liked London."

"Why did you like it?"

"Because…it's where the action is—I like activity, movement—always _doing_ things—"

"You are, then, a restless person?" Colette asked, her voice understanding. "Or at least you have a very restless sort of life."

Sirius breathed out again, thinking of London.

He _liked_ the anonymity of his flat, the anonymity of the streets—a place where you could lose yourself, you didn't have to go to the same bar twice, if you didn't want to.

You didn't have to be _known_ , if you didn't want it.

A place he'd lived most of his life, but in which he had no history. A city that had no memory of him—or if it had, had forgotten.

A city he _wished_ would forget.

"Yes," he agreed, perturbed. "I…guess I do."

Colette considered him—with that expression of puzzlement she often wore, but also a desire to understand. She was odd, as Walburga had said: wise and solemn, sheltered and naive. Inexperienced and arch, coquettish and shy. Unremarkable and—

Well, if not dazzling, then at least—an original.

And not fitted to her life as the daughter of an obscure country squire, that was for certain. It was clear that none of the things that she valued, none of her potential could be met in the life that her parents were determined to set her on.

She peaked her eyes up again.

"Surely you will not like wandering forever." An owl swooped overhead, letting out a plaintive hoot before soaring to the Owlry, which towered above them. "One day you will want to rest."

Sirius stuck his hands into his pockets.

"I can rest when I'm dead." He kicked the snow with the heel of his boot. "That's what they say."

"Won't you want to before then?" She pressed. "And won't you want a place to do so? And a…home in which to do so?"

He didn't answer. A home…what was a home? Had he ever known one, besides here? He thought of the flat, before Regulus had shown up on his doorstep. As anonymous and bleak a place as anywhere in London, a hole in the wall to sleep and eat, not rest.

Home…did anyone in his family even understand the concept?

Of course. _Even Uncle Alphard came home to die._

And he wasn't alone, either. That's what the notice in the paper said, at least. _'The deceased was surrounded by his family, mother and father, brother and sister…'_

 _She must not have found out about the will until after._

"Maybe I'm not meant for that sort of life."

He was staring down at the snow, but the sound of gentle footsteps crunching it signaled her stepping closer.

"I often think it is what we want in life most, when it _seems_ out of reach…" She touched his shoulder. "We convince ourselves we never wanted in the first place."

The breath left his body very slowly.

"How did you get so wise, eh?"

"I have a grandmother who tells me things I remember, mostly."

Colette began to trace her patterns in the snow with her wand again—a flower, from bud to blossom, which morphed into a butterfly that flapped its wings. It reminded Sirius of a Muggle etching toy he'd once seen in a shop window—the ones you'd shake to wipe the slate clean again.

A melancholy thought—how welcome that would be. The ability to wipe the slate clean.

A past as pure and spotless as the snow.

"Pretty," Sirius said, watching the image fade away. "Too bad it doesn't last."

"It's not the kind of magic that does."

He waved his own wand, the snow spun and centered on a point, slowly taking shape, like pottery on the wheel.

"I wish I knew how to do that," Colette said, admiringly. The snowball floated in the air above her, darting back and forth with almost as much verve and dexterity as a snitch. "I once saw a few of my boy cousins play with them, at a winter spent at my great-aunt's house in Burgundy—it looked like so much fun!" The French girl lifted her finger to trace the edge of the perfect, spinning globe with her thumb. "But none of the girls wanted to join in and risk getting—" She rolled her eyes, just a little. "'Whacked about the head.'"

"I can teach you, if you'd like."

"Would you— _really_?"

At the sight of her, rosy-cheeked and dimpled, he smiled—the sight banishing every painful recollection that had been stirred up on what he had thought was to be a simple visit.

Sirius hadn't expected the past to intrude on the present anymore than he had expected the _now_ to intrude on the _then_.

"Sure."

He went over the incantation with her, and the wand movement—carefully grasping her delicate wrist to ease her into the movement—a circular wave not unlike spinning a plate.

"Easy—just a bit more—" Her snowball was lopsided. "Yes—less whirling, more—" She jabbed in the stomach, and he fell forward, catching her hair in his face (it smelled of lilacs and rosewater and the promise of spring right around the corner) "—Easy! You know, twisting."

"Oh—sorry—it's just you make it look so easy to do!"

"It _is_ easy—with practice."

Colette got the trick of it after a few minutes—Sirius could tell that she would have mastered the spell faster if someone else had been teaching her, for she was very self-conscious of him watching her try (despite the fact that he was a very lax schoolmaster, giving nothing but encouraging jibes, at worst!) and rather than bringing out his impatient side, something warm and satisfying, like the feeling of mulled wine, burned in his chest.

"There you go—I told you you'd get it!"

Their two snowballs—his, admittedly, a little prettier and a little more elegant in its flight path, floated up and around their heads.

"Of course, you might need some remedial lessons on the finer points of snowball levitation," Sirius remarked, rubbing his chin. Colette's ball of ice kept dragging—she hadn't quite mastered the art of the wrist twist that kept it together. "It'll fall apart, at that rate."

She grinned—an expression he hadn't yet seen her wear.

"I think this will do perfectly well for what I have in mind, thank you."

"And what's that—"

The enormous snowball smacked him upside the head. Sirius sputtered, punch-drunk aghast, while she giggled against the rock as he tried to shake the snow and dirty from his hair.

"How quickly they turn on you, when you do them a favor!"

"If it is so easy, I wonder how you did not think to _duck_."

He grinned, wickedly.

"You're going to be sorry for that, Miss Battancourt."

"Am I?" She twirled on her heels mischievously. "I should dearly like to know why."

In seconds he had one, two, three snowballs in the air—Colette shrieked in delight, taking off across the field, managing to conjure one gigantic ball of her own, more like the head of a snowman, and it trailed after her, shedding snow and leaves and debris in its wake.

One of his collided into hers—another he exploded about her head in a shower of snow (she let out a very satisfying cry, all thought of her dignity or fancy up-do forgotten). The third whizzed in front of her—Sirius narrowed his eyes—he'd get her right in the face, the saucy girl, and—

"Oh!" A gasp and a thump, and the figure dropped into the snow.

"Colette!"

He dropped his wand—the snowballs crumbled and flopped unceremoniously on the ground next to him. He rushed over to her.

There was a clump of beach trees at the edge of the field, and in her haste to escape him, Colette had stumbled and tripped over it.

He kneeled in the snow next to the girl, still stunned and face-down in the snow.

"—Damn. Are you alright?"

"Yes—" She tried to sit up, but found it difficult, thanks to the minor snowbank she found herself in. "Yes, just—silly me, to fall, like that it."

He ran a hand over her shoulders, her arms—ignoring her flush of embarrassment in favor of making sure he hadn't inadvertently hurt her.

"Nothing broken—no bruises?" He scooted over her, and cradled the back of her head with his hand, fingertips tracing the soft hair at the base of her neck, searching for blood or bruises. "Nothing hurt?"

"Only my pride," Colette murmured. "I…think you won."

He released her, reluctant to let go.

"Well, it was your first snowball fight." Sirius picked a twig out of her hair, gently. "Well fought. I think we can call it a draw."

"Perhaps I need a little more practice."

"I'm so sorry, I can get—" He hushed his voice, he didn't quite no why. It wasn't as if anyone was around to hear them. "Carried away, sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. A bit—competitive."

Colette smiled.

"I like that about you," she whispered.

"Yeah, well…" Sirius let out a shaky laugh. "Sometimes—people get hurt."

A single snowflake clung to her eyelash—which she fluttered. It melted and dropped to her cheek, like a single tear that he wanted to wipe away—

"I'm less delicate than I look."

It was only then that Sirius realized how close their faces were.

She had a splash of freckles on the nose—he had noticed them the night they met, but somehow they stood out much more when her face and hair (pleasantly disheveled as it was now) were contrasted with the whiteness of the snow that surrounded her like a halo.

Ditto her eyes, which were looking up at him with less mischief than… _expectation_.

He felt his own face tingle—with heat, or was it flushed from the cold? And it was then that he had the sudden and irresistible urge, not to pull back, but to lean forward, just like this, until their faces were no longer merely close, but touching—

It was at that moment the beach tree they were under dumped an inordinate amount of snow onto his _head_.

Sirius let out an unholy shout, followed by a string of curses, which was then followed by Colette (shielded from the bulk of the attack by his head and shoulders, she managed to roll out from under him and crawl to safety) yelling 'was he hurt?', clearly torn between laughter and concern he hadn't drowned.

Sirius sputtered and brushed the mass of snow off his shoulders before standing up, still furious—though laughing a bit himself.

"What the—what the bleeding hell was _that_?" Sirius demanded, peering up into the trees, as he helped Colette to her feet. "Did you see anything up there? Are there a family of squirrels having a go at me?"

The spell of the moment—that momentary loss of control—was broken, but there was an uneasiness between them, as they both couldn't quite pretend to have forgotten it.

"I—no." Cheeks still flushed, she ducked her head a little to check she still had her reticule. "Nothing."

Sirius chuckled weakly and fixed the tree with a disgruntled look. He kicked it with the side of his shoe.

"Must've been an owl roosting up there, decides to take flight and dislodge three days worth of snowstorm straight on my head." He rubbed the side of his hair—now mildly drenched. He lifted his wand to dry it, still cursing the animal population at large. "How do you like that? Anyway—" He released her hand. "I'm—glad you're not hurt."

"So am I. That is—" Colette fiddled with her hair, fumbling with the pins that were almost falling out. "I'm glad…you weren't either."

They each smiled at one another, shyly, before Sirius whipped his head around in the direction of the castle, his face as alert as a gundog's.

"What is it?"

"I just—I had the sudden feeling—do you know, that creeping on the back of the neck you get, when someone's looking at you?"

He peered in the open window of the Owlry. It was empty, plain as day. Strange…

He turned back to her.

"I…had that feeling, now."

"Of being watched?"

"Yes…"

 _And not just by anyone._

"Anyway—" He shook his head, like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. "It's passed, now."

Sirius put his arm out to Colette—an offer to take it, but then, as if remembering their all too recent brush with each other (and seeing the embarrassment on her face), he dropped it again, and set off at a trot in the direction of the castle, leaving her to follow behind at safer distance.

With any luck it would help them both cool down.

 _It was only a game,_ Sirius reminded himself. _Just a lark._

If he said it to himself enough, perhaps that would make it true.

* * *

For someone who had ( _presumably_ ) come to speak to her, Orion Black didn't seem all that interested in engaging in conversation.

She had at last managed to get him to sit down on the sofa across from her. He was also answering her polite, boring questions—how the trip was, the weather—with equally polite replies, usually of the monosyllabic variety.

Otherwise he seemed content to sit there, in her sitting room, quietly taking in the scenes as if it were the _Chinoiserie_ room in the Victoria and Albert and not drinking the cup of tea she'd made for him.

The longer he sat there, the more uneasy Lily grew at his presence.

He wasn't doing anything, exactly—but he never seemed relaxed, either. The look behind the eyes as they glanced down at her chipped china, the tea-cozy, hanging off the back of the chair, the stain on the carpet from when James had tracked hoof prints inside that she could never get out—she could _feel_ the judgement of that man palpably in the air. But there was nothing to it, really—no _actual_ social faux-pas, and he certainly wasn't treating her differently than she sensed he would have treated any near stranger.

 _"_ _My father, Evans, is like a snake. He lies there for so long you think he must be dead, and just when you're tempted to shove a shoe at him—"_

"I understand I am to offer you and your husband congratulations."

 _"—_ _That's when he goes straight for the jugular."_

Lily lowered her own cup—it was the first words the man had spoken of his own volition for at least five minutes. She did not think she had ever been congratulated in quite such a bored tone of voice.

"I…" A discreet look down— _surely_ she wasn't showing, yet. "Thank you. I didn't realize you—did—did Sirius tell you?"

He smiled over his cup, politely.

"No. My wife did. From where she ascertained the information, I wouldn't know."

"Sirius must've been the one." She set her untouched tea cup on the sideboard. "We…haven't told anybody else." Lily forced a smile. "It's a bit of a secret."

Mr. Black glanced down at his cup of tepid tea.

"You didn't mention it in a _letter_ , by chance?"

She stared at him, momentarily perplexed—until her brain caught up with her eyes, and the sardonic expression she read there.

"Does Mrs. Black read _all_ her family's mail, as a general rule?"

"Far more often than Sirius confides in her about his life."

He placed his cup on the table between them.

"Perhaps that's changing, though." He leaned his face—handsome, lined, gray at the temples—the face of a man prematurely aged—on a fist, propped on the sofa arm. "They had breakfast together yesterday at his flat."

"That's…lovely." She sat up, surprised at the picture and wondering that Sirius had not mentioned it to her. "I hope you're all—getting on together. As best you can, given the…circumstances."

He said nothing, only stared past her shoulder.

"We've asked Sirius to be godfather, you know."

Lily beamed and put a hand on her stomach. The gesture was fast becoming a habit, since she'd learned the news of her first child, precious and growing inside her—the little boy or girl she knew she and her husband already loved more than they thought was possible.

Orion's expression stirred for a moment—the flicker of surprise, like a candle being snuffed out—before it slid into the implacable blank.

"That is quite the honor." A pause. "And a responsibility."

"I'm very aware."

He folded his hands neatly on his lap.

"You've thought this through—thoroughly?"

"Of _course_."

"And you're sure you're making the right choice in my son?"

Lily felt the tingle of her temper—at the back of the neck, the nexus point from which the

redness that always covered her face when she was angry would spread.

"I can't think of anyone better." Her smile felt strained, even though the warm feeling that underpinned her next words were genuine. "He is— _so_ dear to us, Mr. Black, truly. I cannot tell you how much his friendship has meant to me."

"You need not attempt to, if you find it taxing."

Lily faltered.

Whatever associations her name had, she was _not_ a wilting flower. Injustice was the one thing in life Lily Evans had never been able to tolerate—and for Lily Potter, this maxim was doubly true. Sirius had his faults, no one could deny that—but she could not imagine somebody who _really_ knew him, as a father should know his son, responding to a genuine outpouring of affection with sarcasm.

Maybe it was the baby, or the sleet, drumming against the window, or the poor night's sleep she'd gotten—but it upset her.

"It must've been quite a shock to you, seeing him again like that." Her voice had lost some of its sweetness, replaced with something of her natural steel. "And under such awful circumstances."

"We are doing the best we can."

"Is that really true?" Lily asked, calmly. "You don't think, maybe—you and your wife could put a _tad_ more effort in?"

In inference disturbed Mr. Black's otherwise placid facade.

"I _beg_ your pardon?"

That haughtiness really was genetic, she decided.

"I have _seen_ Sirius, this past week—and spoken to him." Lily straightened up in her chair. "I know things aren't going all that well. And I know—however difficult he can be—it's not _entirely_ his fault."

Mr. Black shifted his weight in his seat—unease obvious.

"I am not accustomed to speaking about my private affairs with _strangers_."

"Well, _I'm_ not accustomed to people turning up on my doorstep, _uninvited_ and demanding a cup of tea they then refuse to _drink_ , so I guess this is a first for us both."

Orion stared at her—not with the bored, slightly condescending expression that had pointedly colored every interaction they'd ever had. He seemed to Lily to be sizing her up.

Mrs. Potter glared back at him—she was not a girl easily intimidated (it was one of the qualities that Professor Slughorn always complimented her on) but the longer Sirius's father watched her, the more uncomfortable she felt.

"There is some confusion, I see."

"I think it's all crystal clear, myself!"

Sirius's father merely cocked an eyebrow, that annoyingly smug look plastered across his face, as if he knew something she didn't, and Lily found herself forcibly reining in several additional tart comments.

If she rose to the bait it would be _conceding_.

"…Look, Mr. Black. You seem like a man who is—very private." Lily took a long breath in and out again. "And I'm sure this is quite difficult for you—but I'm _certain_ you wouldn't have come if you weren't—"

"—I would not have _come_ if I was not invited."

Her tongue seemed to stick to the roof of her mouth.

"What?"

He took a letter out of his breast pocket, briskly—opened it, looked down, then—to her surprise—repeated himself and handed the proof to her.

James's handwriting was unmistakable. As were the words, scribbled hastily, the date (it must've been written yesterday morning, before she'd awoken) and the time.

Lily went pale.

"I take it I am to understand your husband is _not_ , shortly, to arrive?"

The hand holding the letter dropped to her side.

"No," Mrs. Potter said, in a faint voice. "He'll be…he's supposed to be out all day."

On an Order mission. She felt very lonely in this house for so long without him, she'd half been hoping to have another call from Sirius to come 'round the flat, if only to ease the loneliness.

Mr. Black nodded, understandingly.

"I wondered." He took the letter back from her, glanced down at the open page—and smiled, grimly. "Ah. _I_ see." Orion looked up. "It would appear I've mistaken the day—it was for tomorrow that he summoned me. My eyes are, I fear, not what they used to be. I'm sorry to have put you to the trouble. If I'd known what a _burden_ to you it was…"

The words had been written in hast, the three did look smudged, easy enough to mistake for a two, James had clearly been somewhat agitated when he'd sent off this letter. So agitated he'd forgotten to mention anything about it to his wife.

"…I would not have darkened your doorstep."

Lily's hands, she realized, were shaking.

"But why didn't you _say_ anything about James inviting you?"

He shrugged.

"Well, naturally I _assumed_ he had been detained, and you, as his wife, were entertaining me in his absence," Orion said, carelessly. His eyes gleamed with malice. "That you didn't know he'd invited me never even crossed my mind."

"I never said—"

"—But it _is_ rather obvious."

A long silence followed. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak, though for Orion Black, the lull in conversation was far more comfortable.

She was not used to long stretches of uncertainty.

"I think I…know what this about," Lily said, quickly. "And I'm sorry my husband has called you out this way—but there's been a terrible misunderstanding—"

"Evidently." Mr. Black looked up from his letter to her face. "Though I don't think it's between he and I."

Her cheeks colored.

"James has—gotten a funny idea in his head about you and Sirius, you see."

The older man raised both his eyebrows with polite surprise.

"What sort of idea?"

Mrs. Potter bit her thumb.

"It's too—ridiculous to say aloud. I wouldn't want to offend you by suggesting."

She noticed the expression on his face—the placidity that was obviously a cover for an immense cunning.

Then it occurred to her that perhaps it _wasn't_ so ridiculous.

"I find it difficult to imagine you being capable of offending me in _any_ such case."

 _Oh, what, because nothing I could say to you could_ possibly _ruffle your feathers?_

"My husband—" She pushed her hair, which clung, limp, to the side of her—damn it—perspiring face. "—Has it in his head that you're—somehow— _blackmailing_ Sirius, of all things."

The words came out in a rush, followed quickly by a forced laugh.

Orion Black did not join her in it. Nor did he fly into a temper, affect shock.

He didn't show any emotion at all.

"Why does he think that, I wonder?"

She blinked. Somehow, _that_ question—asked so frankly, so calmly—had not been the response she had been expecting.

Nor was it the one that she had wanted.

"What does it matter?" Lily heard the shrillness in her voice. "It's such an _outrageous_ notion—"

"Is it?" He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. "I don't see why it should be."

Lily—for lack of anything better to do—goggled. She felt her mouth drop open, saw the open look of distaste—it was an odd thing, to see the shadow of Sirius in that expression.

Rarely did he get that look—but it occasionally happened.

"Because, well—what sort of father would do such a thing to his _own son_?"

He considered this appeal to decency with a cold and methodical deliberation that Lily found ghoulish.

"Oh—one who'd been pushed to the limit by his own son could be compelled to take—rather drastic steps."

"Is 'drastic' _really_ the word you'd use for threatening coercion?"

The only sound that punctuated the quiet was the crinkling sound of an empty biscuit package being dragged about by the cat.

"Did your husband tell you any more details about this…interesting theory of his?" Orion asked, conversationally—ignoring her question. "Its origins, for example."

"He seemed to think Sirius doing your shopping was a clue," she replied, voice deeply sarcastic. "A sign of something more _sinister_ at work."

Her conversational partner at last took a sip from his teacup.

"It's true, I have him on a tight leash," he continued, placidly. "I'm sure you can appreciate what an _apt_ metaphor that is."

Lily's hand trembled. Something lurched unpleasantly in the base of her stomach—and it had nothing to do with morning sickness.

That night—in the flat—when she had called Sirius 'Padfoot' in front of them—

"Judging from your reaction just now—" Orion continued, mercilessly. "And this conversation as a whole, I can only assume the suggestion on your husband's part was _not_ well received by his wife."

"I told him I thought the whole idea was nonsense." Her lips were very thin and white against her teeth. "James—accused me of being naive about you lot."

He let out a short laugh.

"What else?"

"That he hadn't wanted to tell me because he'd known I wouldn't believe him. He says I always see the best in everyone." Her look turned withering. "He thinks people take advantage of my good nature."

Orion laughed.

"An inelegant accusation for a man to make of his wife so early in marriage."

"Do you agree with him?"

He smiled, coldly.

"As a general rule, I think women would do _well_ to listen to their husbands."

Her face turned the color of a tomato.

"I don't believe you misread that letter at all, Mr. Black." She was practically vibrating with anger—she had not felt like this in years, hot embarrassment and shame and a profound feeling of disillusionment. "I think you came on the wrong day on _purpose_."

He studied the heavy gold ring on his finger with a careless nonchalance that made her blood boil.

"For what reason would I do such a thing?"

"I don't know—to make me feel small—or perhaps to draw me out." She stood up, as if that would help her recover something of her lost dignity. "I couldn't _begin_ to understand how your mind works, quite frankly."

"It _would_ be the behavior of a rather unscrupulous man."

"It was a cruel thing." Lily heard the tears in her own voice—she bit them back. "I think I'm beginning to understand what Sirius meant about having a family of all Slytherins. It's true, isn't it?"

"If it were, you would be the _last_ woman I would tell."

She walked over to the mantle. Lily rested her hand on the edge of the tarnished silver picture frame that bordered the wedding portrait.

"If you wanted to see pictures of Sirius from the last three years, you could have just _asked_." She didn't turn around—not yet. "I would have made copies of them for you."

When she turned to look at him, hoping she had landed a blow, Lily was surprised how little satisfaction she got from those hard eyes glinting with suppressed emotion.

"It won't work, you know. It's the worst possible thing to do—it will only push him away _more_ —"

"I thought I made my feelings about your unsolicited opinions _quite_ clear."

"If you don't like them, you're free to leave anytime," Mrs. Potter replied, coldly. "In fact, I think I'd prefer it if you did—and didn't come back to my house—tomorrow or… _ever._ "

Orion stood up.

She watched him, an elegant, handsome man—satisfied with the work he'd done here, unaffected by her telling him to get out of his house. He looked happy to go, frankly. Not only was she furious, this man was glad to see it, the snake—he'd probably come here for the express purpose of provoking the reaction.

"As you wish. I will make other arrangements with your husband." He set the tea cup down. "Was there anything else?"

He began to walk to the door, not waiting for her answer.

"There's only one other thing, Mr. Black."

His step slowed.

"It's a warning, really. Don't get in a war with James over Sirius. You won't win."

He stopped, hand on the door.

" _If_ you press him to make a choice—as you and your wife seem hellbent on doing—Sirius _will_ choose my husband, in the end. Of this, I am certain. Do you know how I know?"

He didn't ask her to elaborate—nor did he leave. He remained fixed in place, hand on the doorknob—rooted to the spot.

"Just before we were married, Sirius came over to the flat where I was living—he was very, very drunk. I think that's the only time he's ever completely honest with even himself—anyway, I doubt he remembers the conversation we had. I'll never forget it. He said to me, 'Take care of James, Evans. He was the first person who ever really loved me.'"

Lily paused—let the words, which, though true, might as well have been a warning shot across the bow, for they were meant to wound as much as illuminate—fully sink in.

Orion gave no sign of even having heard, beyond remaining riveted to the spot.

"Your _son_ said that to me, Mr. Black. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard, and the point isn't that it's _true_ —because I don't believe for one moment that it _is._

"The point is that he _believes_ it's true."

He turned, slowly, and it was from the cold and emotionless mask that he wore that Lily knew just how angry he was.

"Are you _quite_ finished?"

She glowered at him.

"I suppose this is the wrong moment to ask if Sirius could come over to our house for a few hours on Christmas Eve?" Her lip twitched in an involuntary smile at her own idiotic boldness. "We're having a party, you know, and we were hoping he'd come."

"You are _by far_ the most insolent women I've ever met—and if you knew my sister, you'd understand _just_ what that means."

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

Orion Black's lip twisted, and for a moment she thought he seemed to be on the verge of laughing. At her or at himself, Lily wondered.

"Perhaps Professor Slughorn had the right idea about your sorting after all."

It was only when Lily heard the front door close behind him that she felt the full shock of the moment—and promptly picked up her discarded knitting needles to hurl them at the sofa cushion.

* * *

 **Thank you so much for your comments, as always. Please let me know that you're still enjoying and your thoughts on the story. Hopefully all my American readers are having a restful Thanksgiving weekend. God bless. 3**


	21. Chapter 21

_"'_ _If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge? Of course not! If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have given you a magical protection he could not penetrate? Of course not, Harry! Don't you see? Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!'"_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 21**

* * *

"…And so _then_ , naturally, since the trophies crashing down had made _such_ a bloody racket, we had to clear off, lest we be caught by old Filch—"

"—Filch? _Feelch_?"

"No, _Filch_. Rhymes with 'bilge'—almost."

"Who is this— _Monsieur_ Filch?"

"Caretaker. Miserable sod. If you're unlucky we'll bump into him before we leave, today. _Anyway,_ we wouldn't have had to do a runner, except he got a tip-off from Snivellus, so _we_ had to scarper."

"He got a— _what_ from _whom_?"

Sirius, who was on the step above her, turned around and grinned.

"A—tip-off from Snivellus. A clue."

"' _Snivellus_ '? What sort of name is _that_?"

"The sort of name you give a prat, of course."

Then, after another fleeting smile, he turned back around and continued climbing up the steps to the west tower. Not having a chance to argue that that was no sort of explanation at all, Colette raced after him.

He often did that. For all his encouragement of _her_ , Colette thought him a fine tale-teller in his own right—except he had an irritating habit of forgetting not _everyone_ was familiar with the colorful cast of characters that marked his life story. She had an idea that Sirius was teasing her, playing on her natural curiosity to get her to ask more questions about him and his exploits.

The worst part, she thought, cheeks hot against the fur collar of her winter cloak—was that it _worked_.

Well, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She didn't need to know anything about someone with as unpleasant a name as ' _Snivellus_.'

"Here it is."

He pushed open the door and lead her out on the parapet of the west tower. It was not the highest spot on the castle, but—according to Sirius—it was the most remote, and would therefore afford them much desired privacy.

 _Or, if not privacy_ —the hairs on the back of Colette's neck prickled— _at least the appearance of it._

"This may not be the _best_ spot for seeing where we just were, but we've got a great view of all the other towers, see?"

He climbed out on the parapet—Colette followed, mindful of the slipperiness, afraid in her clumsiness she might fall right over the side.

She was almost more afraid of Sirius having to catch her than the drop.

"See—" He held her shoulder firmly, an action which made Colette's stomach somersault. "That's Gryffindor Tower, where I lived." He shaded his eyes with his hands to prevent glare—for the tower was completely covered with snow still—their footprints the only sign of disturbance by man or beast. "I can't tell you the number of times I went up on the roof and did something stupid."

"You could try."

He mimed tapping on his nonexistent wrist watch.

"I have my appointment, soon. Anyway, I've already bored you enough, with all my stories." He stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. "When I'm at Hogwarts, I can't resist recalling my glory days, apparently."

Colette hadn't been bored by his stories—far from it. He had an infectious personality—like the sun, when he was happy or at peace, Sirius seemed to transmit the feeling onto everything around him.

Or at least, her did to _her_.

It made it difficult for her to do the right thing.

There was a stone bench; Miss Battancourt sat down on it, resting her back against the side of the castle, grateful for the shelter it provided from the wind rising off the distant mountains. Without bitter cold blowing into her face, it was easier to study her companion.

He cleared off the snow and sat down on the edge of the parapet next to Colette, resting his hand gently on his knee in an effortlessly elegant pose. They sat in comfortable stillness and silence for a long while, before she broke it.

"You… _love_ this place, don't you?"

Sirius had been staring out over the lawn and the forest below them—when he looked around at her, his voice was tinged with surprise.

"Of course." His tone and manner were refreshingly matter-of-fact. "It's my favorite in all the world."

Colette arched one of her brows—but rather than giving her the arch look of Narcissa or his mother, it only made her look more quizzical.

"I am surprised."

"Why?"

Sirius leaned forward, boyish eyes dancing with mischief.

Colette stood up, brushing a dusting of snow off her cloak.

"Only that—you seem such an _adventurous_ sort of person." Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement. "To love your school above all other places—that is surprising, _non_?"

A shadow crossed his face, tingeing that smile of remembrance she had seen so often since they'd arrived at the castle with unexpected melancholy.

"Hogwarts was the first place I was ever happy."

Her intake of breath was sharp and unexpected—the altitude made her shudder and nearly choke. Sirius had turned his face once more to look out at the landscape, so Colette could only guess at his expression—but there was a tension in his neck suggestive of some weight, a terrific burden on his shoulders.

She sat down across from him, in the groove of the parapet—their knees nearly touching.

"Were you _very_ unhappy at home?" Colette asked, gently. "With your family? Was it— _so_ dreadful?"

He pulled his knees up hugged them, his body shivering from the cold—though Colette wondered if there wasn't something else he was protecting himself from.

"Not—" Sirius's voice grew soft. "—Not _all_ the time, anyway."

She didn't know what compelled her to rest her hand on his arm, except she felt that he needed the reassurance to continue speaking.

And she _wanted_ him to continue speaking to her in this way—perhaps a little selfishly. One got the sense that he found it difficult to confide in anyone about this part of his life, and it gave Colette a curious, heady feeling to think she was special, even in this small way.

"But it _was_ difficult."

"No more for _me_ than it was for _you_ , I'm sure." She recoiled, and Sirius was instantly chastened by her reaction to his snapping. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—put my foot in it. It's just, well…" He gave her a rueful look. "I figured you…know what I mean."

Colette nodded, sadly. There was no argument she could make against his accusation—after all, it was what they shared that rendered explanation superfluous.

Even as a child you knew when you weren't like everyone else.

"Of course, no one's unhappy _all_ the time. But it was _different_ , when I got here." He sighed, and the sun might as well have had a giant blanket thrown over it, smothering the light. "It was all less…complicated. And not so _stifling—_ I felt…free, for the first time in my life."

His eyes fell on her glove, and Colette realized that she had left her hand on his arm for far too long. Blushing, the girl shoved it back in her muff.

"I wish I had liked school as much as you did," she said, pulling her cloak around her shoulders. "Perhaps if I had made good friends myself I would have."

He pulled a face—then quickly winked, recovering some of his characteristic teasing good humor.

"It's only because you weren't allowed to dorm with everyone else—" Sirius stretched his arms up, languidly. "I'm sure you would have found some mates, too, if you'd been allowed to roam about, as you should have been."

"Perhaps…"

All Colette could think of was Antoinette, and all her other cousins and friends, a pack of girls that she had never felt at ease with, no matter how hard she tried.

Evidently, her face could not conceal where her thoughts had wandered, for _his_ expression turned rueful at the sight.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with not wanting anything to do with the people your _parents_ tell you you have to like. It's not a crime. In fact—" Sirius removed the now infamous flask from his interior jacket and offered it to her. "—In _your_ case it's probably a sign of great wisdom and taste."

She pushed the bottle of liquor away. Colette had no taste for the stuff—not today.

"That is _not_ what happened."

"It is." He leaned forward—eyes intensely fixed on hers. "I refuse to believe otherwise. There's no other reason why you shouldn't have friends galore."

She turned the side of her mouth down and furrowed her brow. She certainly couldn't imagine having friends—not the way Sirius talked about them. His three companions of boyhood were all but extensions of himself.

Like _family_.

"I don't know how to show myself to advantage with strangers," Colette said, voice clipped. "I cannot converse with them."

"You talked to _me_ ," Sirius parried, deftly. "We wouldn't be talking _now_ if you hadn't."

"Yes, but _that_ was because I had a _purpose_ in speaking to you—" Colette tossed her head—the ringlet she had carefully spent a quarter hour trying to curl with her wand so that it dangled becomingly had gone limp since she'd fallen in the snow. "I was— _exposing_ you as the imposter you were."

He laughed.

"But you _didn't_ expose me." Sirius sat up, grinning like a monkey, and took another careless swig from his flask. "You made a big show of saying you would, and then you just stayed for a chat, instead."

Her cheeks colored, and she made a tart remark to the effect of not wishing to spoil his grandfather's birthday party by making a scene—not, of course, that she had _known_ it was his grandfather's party, for he was a deceiving _wastrel_ of the first order.

He tilted his head, conspiratorial look in his eyes.

"Am I actually to believe that you only came up to me that night because you thought I was in disguise? If I had just been another guest at the party, not posing as anyone, wearing my own face—you really think you wouldn't have had the courage to speak to me?"

"Of course I wouldn't have!"

"I don't believe you." She turned her nose up and sniffed, haughtily. "You're far braver than you give yourself credit for, Colette."

Her heart warmed, her annoyance at him softened. When he said things like that, Colette could almost believe them.

"I never gave you permission to use my Christian name, sir."

Sirius nodded, conciliatory—though he still had the impertinent gleam in his eye. Let him try, she thought, warily—she was not going to let him start taking liberties, whatever charms his mother clearly thought her susceptible to.

"Miss Battancourt, then." He beat his breast in a gesture of remorse. "Miss Battancourt, the bravest, _boldest_ wallflower I ever met, forever telling me off—" He pulled a loose strand from her cloak. "—Right before she hides behind a book cover."

The joke managed to coax a smile out of her.

"I…I simply do not know how to talk to men," she admitted, softly. "Not the ones my mother introduces me to, anyway."

"So why am _I_ different?"

Because he was informal, shocking—wonderfully youthful, strange and mysterious. He was not like anyone she'd ever met in her life.

He also had a swelled head, and didn't need any more encouragement from her.

"Because you're…" Colette paused, thinking back on all her English lessons for the perfect word. " _Disreputable._ "

He let out a loud, barking laugh. It echoed against the castle's towers—Colette shushed her amused companion with a wave of her hand, but he paid her no mind. Sirius was not at all worried about alerting this Mr. Filch, or anyone else, to their presence.

"All the best people in life are."

He pulled a box of cigarettes out of the inner pockets of his robe and lit one, taking a long drag. It was such a _common_ gesture, and yet he still managed to infuse it with an undeniable elegance. Sirius turned to her, his keen grey eyes suddenly intent again.

"Why don't you have more confidence in yourself, eh?"

She fiddled with her cloak's fastener—a fiddly, ivory thing that gave her something to do. How could Colette explain it to him without humiliating herself? The asides her mother made about how she would never attract a husband if she didn't learn to make herself agreeable—how her cousins with whom she had nothing in common—but, starved for companionship as she was, desperate for even _their_ meagre acceptance—rebuffed her—how could she tell _Sirius_?

Colette was not the sort of person who could stand up to the scorn of other people. She cared too much.

She wanted the acceptance of the people she loved too much.

"It will sound stupid to you."

He lowered his cigarette.

"Try me," Sirius said, with an intentness she had not seen from him before.

She breathed in, slowly. It steadied her—anchored her.

"My mother says that young men don't want to talk about books, or made-up stories, or travel—they only want to talk about themselves, and that I—" The air was dry and thin so high up—it was difficult to draw even the shallowest breath. "—Must learn to be more like other young ladies, rather than—"

"—Being yourself?"

Colette felt the tears well in her eyes, and a sudden wave of nausea and shame came over her.

"I—" Her voice caught. "I _told_ you it is all so silly—"

"—It isn't."

The wind picked up again, and the sound it made whistling through the turrets—a plaintive howling—echoed through the turrets of the deserted castle.

"Believe me, I understand. All too well."

She lowered her face to her lap to hide the welling tears in her eyes. She felt something rough pressed into her hand, and when she managed to blink away the wet, realized he had given her an old strip of linen he'd pulled from somewhere in lieu of a handkerchief.

Colette sniffed and wiped her nose.

"And…what would you do, if you were me?"

"I _have_ been you," Sirius observed, caustically. "And you _know_ what I did."

Colette's shoulders tightened.

"But I could never bring myself to—" She gripped the ersatz handkerchief in her gloved fist. "I could never do _that._ "

 _That._ The aura of the forbidden, the unspoken, lingered about the word. _That thing of which we do not speak._

Her companion stood up, abruptly, and leaned against the parapet—still managing to look impossibly handsome, even with a brooding scowl.

"It appears your opinion of me hasn't much changed since that night," Sirius remarked, ruefully. "Goes to show what they say about first impressions being right, and all that."

She wrinkled her nose at him, disapprovingly.

"Running away was—perhaps an option for you." Colette smoothed her skirts, trying to hide her disapproval of his actions and failing, miserably. She would never be any great hand at hiding the things of the heart—and her feelings about the importance of family certainly fell in that category. "But it is not for me. And the cases are different. You are a man—and _I_ am an only child."

He shook his head, looking utterly bewildered.

"So? What does _that_ have to do with anything?"

"So— _I_ do not have a younger sister to carry on with my duties and responsibilities, should I choose to abandon them."

It took him a moment to understand what she was driving at—but when he grasped the general mode of her thought processes his scowl grew.

"Having a _brother_ did not have _any_ bearing on my decision to run away from home!"

He shook a finger in her face, but Colette only waved her hand, dismissively.

"Oh, of course it did. Perhaps you simply did not _realize_."

She explained, patiently, and with the sage wisdom of a woman dozens of years older, which clearly annoyed Sirius all the more, if his blotchy cheeks were anything to go by.

"Realize _what_?"

"That you would not have left home unless there was someone to take your place. Regulus was there to do what you refused to yourself—how do you say it? To take up the mantle."

He snorted and stuck one hand in his pocket, staring back out over the grounds again in a moody huff—though she could already tell he was smarting more from the truth of it than any real anger.

He really was quite easy to read, once one got the trick of it.

"I hate to shatter your precious illusions again, but—to tell you the truth…" Sirius trailed off, voice hardly more than a low mutter. "…At the time, I wasn't thinking much of Regulus at all."

"Of course not," Colette said, her voice softer. "You took him for granted. Anyone would."

He flushed slightly and folded his arms in front of his chest, still holding his lit cigarette between two fingers. Colette thought the gesture might've had more of the desired effect if he was still wearing his Muggle jacket and trousers and standing in front of his motorbike—the rebellious heir to a 't'. In _robes_ he seemed far more the overgrown and petulant schoolboy.

She didn't mind.

"The whole—preserving the family honor, inherited responsibility bit—that's—that's all my father's line. I don't _really_ buy into it, you know."

Sirius's voice had a telling hesitation that pointed to some undercurrent of uncertainty—the young man who hasn't quite made up his mind. He took one last drag of the cigarette before tossing it aside and stamping it with his foot.

"Regulus does, though. He believes it madly…always has." His shoulders fell with the long sigh. "So I suppose, in a way…my dad has my brother for that."

"But not as an heir—despite what all the world believes."

His eyes flashed, and his head shot around, sharply.

"You know about that?" Colette nodded. "How?"

"Your—your mother told me."

His gray eyes widened in surprise, then he fumbled in his pocket and unearthed a crisp packet from his cloak.

"She told you a lot more than I would have expected," he remarked, not without sarcasm, tearing the packet open. "Usually she keeps these things—'in the family', so to speak."

The faint flush of her cheeks did not escape his notice—not when he had pushed his provisions towards her, in an offer of peace.

" _I_ think—" Colette watched him sulkily munch the crisps with amusement. "She felt she owed me some explanation for the situation, given her son's…conduct."

Sirius scowled and tossed the empty crisp packet off the castle.

"Whatever she said to you, I guarantee it's—not how I would have represented things," he said, petulantly. "Merlin—I hate it when she does that."

"Does what?"

"Pushes in—uninvited, and starts going about pretending she speaks for me, represents me—is responsible for my actions."

"If you don't like it, perhaps you ought to stop doing things she feels she needs to apologize for," Colette replied, innocently—though there was a distinct dryness in her voice as well. He shot back a rueful—albeit cowed—look. "She helped your case. You _should_ be grateful."

"Did she?" Sirius perked up. "Did she—talk me up, say nice things?"

"She _is_ your mother—of course she did."

He stared at her for a long while, expression .

"That would be a first, for us."

He pulled out his pack of cigarettes again and lit another, almost as if by impulse—this time his fingers fumbling with the wand, from cold or pent-up nervousness, one couldn't tell.

"What really happened between you?"

He stared out into the middle-distance, expression difficult for her to read. Those grey eyes—so like his father and mother's, glanced up at the distant tower, sight of so many happy memories, then back down at her face.

Colette saw a storm tossing beneath them.

"Would it shock you to learn I was telling the _truth_ that night?"

A run-of-the-mill blood traitor, that was how he had described the missing Black heir to her. How much colder and dispassionate did it sound now, knowing he'd been describing himself the whole time.

"You were very offended that I suggested Mr. and Mrs. Black's son had abandoned his responsibilities. Very quick to correct me."

He flushed red.

"Well—that's—it's not like _I_ care," Sirius stumbled over his words. "I just—I know _you_ care, and didn't want you thinking the worst of me."

"What a contrary fellow—who cares more about the opinions of strangers than of his own family."

When you it laid out like that, Sirius thought, looking down into that heart-shaped and wholly innocent face—it was rather strange wasn't it? A contrary fellow—that was just him. A walking contradiction. Didn't really belong anywhere—one foot in and one foot out.

This had been the _real_ reason why he hadn't wanted her to know his real name, Sirius knew that now. He hadn't had to answer for himself, before.

"What can I say?" He laughed, bitterly. "I had a good feeling about you."

And he did have a romantic streak. She stared up at him, those blue eyes remarkably clear-sighted and frank.

Sirius sighed. There were fronts one put on to cope—but with her, it was more exhausting to wear the mask than take it off. She had the uncanny ability to see his shallow facade for what it was.

"Look, my family and I, we didn't—see eye-to-eye, see? Irreconcilable differences." He ran his fingers through his hair, conscious he might lit his fringe on fire. "They have _their_ way of looking at the world, and I have _mine_ —" Sirius let out a short, bitter laugh. "—And nary the twain shall meet."

He poked at the snow with his wand, moodily.

"Surely there must be some way of…compromising."

He kicked his boot into the ice and laughed.

"They don't know the meaning of the word. You can't do things halfway with them." He closed his eyes. "Either I'm their son and I toe the line, accept their rules, conform my way of thinking to theirs _absolutely_ —or I'm not a Black at all."

Nothing but the whistle of the wind through the snowy trees punctuated that silence.

"It's all or nothing…and I chose nothing." His eyes glimmered strangely beneath his dark fringe. "Which is how you find me here, unattached and untethered. The black sheep."

But that wasn't true, was it? That wasn't the whole story, not by a long-shot. If she knew nothing else, it was _that._

"—Well—one of them, anyway," He corrected, with a faint, ironic grin. "I swear to you—until about a week ago, I hadn't seen or spoken to either of my parents in over three years."

Of course, she couldn't not ask the obvious question of what had changed a week ago—it was far too late for denials on that score.

"What happened?"

Knowing it was coming didn't make it any easier to deal with, though.

"Our…paths crossed unexpectedly."

Colette shivered—the wind was picking up, the air almost as frigid as his voice.

"How did it happen?"

"There was a scene. Someone—we were drawn together by an unexpected—by a person."

" _What_ person?"

He gave her a dark look.

"I'm—not at liberty to get into the details. Suffice it it to say, my— _they_ showed up at the flat I've been living in a week ago and we—that was the first time we'd seen each other since—you know." Sirius gritted his teeth at the memory. "It was an awkward situation for all parties involved, and once in it, the whole thing proved…difficult to extricate myself from."

She fluttered her eyelashes, and he knew she was going to ask one of her infernal, probing little curious questions, and so Sirius plowed on—

"Circumstances demanded—well, I got into a bit of a scrape—that is, I was banged up, and my mother, she—"

"—Took care of you?"

Sirius let out a sigh.

"That's how it all started, at least." He swung his arm over the edge of the castle, impudently. "She was looking for an opening, and she found one. Those two have lodged themselves in my life again good and proper—my mother especially. Now she's got some mad idea into her head about—'restoring my reputation in the family.' I don't know why she's bothering."

"…Don't you?"

He took another long drag from his cigarette.

"Anyway—" He blew out the smoke, which seemed to freeze in the air. "It won't work. My grandfather will never allow it. _He's_ what's she's got to get past, and that's like crossing the North Sea in February."

Colette never argued with him when he was baiting her to do so—Sirius had begun to notice it. Instead the girl furrowed her brow, looking less puzzled than thoughtful and circumspect. Her cheeks were red from the wind, and Sirius had the sudden, irrational desire to grasp the two hands lying in the lap of her cloak and make sure they they weren't freezing through her kidskin gloves.

"I find it difficult imagining her letting you go so easily."

"Well, she did," he replied, sharply. "Never sent me a letter, never knocked on my door—she knew where I was, she could've easily, if she wanted to. Not that I—even _wanted_ that," Sirius added, a defensive edge to his voice. "But I went back to school a few weeks later, for autumn term—and my brother was here as well. It wasn't exactly a _secret_ where I was. I figured they… thought they were well-shot of me."

Whether he wished or dreaded this thought was more difficult to say—and Sirius could sense that if he looked her straight in the face he would be able to see Colette knew the answer to that question even better than he did.

"I'm so sorry."

He knew at once that she meant it, and her sincerity, paradoxically, made him feel as though he'd been petty and childish to bring it up at all.

"Forget it. It's not—" Sirius faltered. "—I don't know whose fault it is, but it's not _yours_."

She peaked up at him through the wisps of hair that had managed to escape her stylish up-do.

"What does your father think of all this?" Colette asked, after another long moment of ponderous silence.

Sirius let out a laugh—even more helpless than the last.

"Who even _knows_ what that man is thinking at any given moment?" He fidgeted, feeling, even in the frigid open air of the parapet, that claustrophobic sensation of the walls closing in that just the subject of Orion brought. "He's going along with it, for the moment—very gung-ho about me learning the family trade of managing our _obscene_ fortune, he even—had me do his accounts yesterday."

"Did he, really?" Colette smiled a little, at the image—she could not imagine someone as playful and energetic as he sitting down to a dusty account book. "And how did you do?"

Sirius smiled, ruefully.

"I don't think he appreciated my suggestions for sorting out his family's finances." The Black heir laughed—but very quickly sobered. "He's doing it to please my mother, at least. I don't think he really—" He turned to look at her, with sudden urgency. "—I mean, can you _honestly_ see _me_ doing what _he_ does?"

Colette frowned, considering the possibility in earnest.

"Yes—one day." He made a sound of disgust at the thought. "You seem as though you could do anything you set your mind to."

"That is one feat too impossible for even _me_."

She arched a brow and brushed some snow off of her skirt.

"If you didn't think it was possible, you wouldn't be attempting it, would you?" She pointed out, and with a knowing smile (and above his strangled protests), continued, "I daresay there is a part of you that wishes to prove yourself up to the task."

"I don't want anything to do with it," he muttered, darkly. "Or him."

"Then why are you trying to make amends, hm?"

He considered her for a long moment, a half-smile loaded with irony plastered across his face.

"I can't tell you," Sirius said, finally—in a decidedly lofty voice. "It's a secret."

"Balderdash and poppycock."

"It is not!" Sirius suppressed a laugh, in spite of himself—she must've picked those phrases up from the _grande dame_ granny. "The truth would shock you, and I simply can't bear to be the one to shatter your last innocent illusion about the world."

She smiled, coyly—and her dimple peeped out.

"You thought I would recognize you when I saw you in Diagon Alley." Colette wasn't asking—she didn't need to. "Because you look so like him."

So alike, and yet so different.

"Perhaps I did. You obviously saw the resemblance, even if you didn't recognize it for what it was. People have been telling me as much my whole life." He sighed. "I've come to expect it."

And her not seeing it had been such a welcome relief—an escape from the reality of who and what he was. Until the inevitable other shoe had dropped, and she'd learned the truth.

Though—to his surprise and frank delight, she hadn't changed the way she spoke to him—or even, he had to admit, how she thought of him. What Sirius had dreaded and feared—had not yet come to pass.

She still wanted to know _him_ , to understand _him_.

He didn't have to pretend with her.

"People often tell me that I have my mother's eyes, you know."

She blinked them—clear, crystalline blue—in another woman's face they might've been icy, but in hers they were only frank and warm.

"Does that get on your nerves?"

She let out a long sigh.

"Not—so much. They mean well. Only…" She bit her lip and turned her cheek slightly away from Sirius. "I wish they wouldn't always tell me it is too bad I didn't get _more_ from her than her eyes."

Sirius informed her in no uncertain terms exactly _where_ he thought those people could go.

Colette smiled, sadly.

"I said it only so you would know—that I, too, know what it is to have to live up to someone—impressive."

"People should—let you alone. Let you be your own person. Not always be—comparing you to somebody else." His eyes hardened as he looked out over the grounds. "Do you ever write about it?"

"Who—myself?"

"Or your family."

She answered in the negative—and after a minute or so of light bickering over how appropriate it would be to write a tell-all _Roman à clef_ about the inner workings of the Battancourt family, Sirius's eyes lit up.

"Oh—I've just thought—damn, I wish my Uncle Alphard was still alive. _He_ was a writer, you know—he could've introduced you to his publisher—and I'm sure all the other well-connected sorts—"

She brightened at the subject—very interested indeed, and so he told her with undisguised delight—how different than the way he spoke of his parents!—of his Uncle Alphard. This hitherto unknown relation had been an explorer, a polyglot who came and went as he pleased, a mysterious object of fascination for his nephew who had never married and the child Sirius—emboldened by an adventurous spirit and wanderlust—had worshipped unabashedly.

Colette was delighted by the amusing stories of his antics—for she could see how much Alphard had meant to him—the only relative for whom he had borne uncomplicated feelings of affection, it seemed.

"It is strange that I have not heard of this uncle of yours," she mentioned, off-handedly, when he finished his story of the time Alphard had brought back the skin of a demiguise from Bolivia. "From either Narcissa or your mother."

"You wouldn't have heard about him from my mother," Sirius scowled. "She pretends he doesn't exist. In fact, you wouldn't be able to find him on our family tree—thanks to her temper and twitchy wand. He's been removed from it."

She let out a little gasp of surprise, and wondered, aloud, that such a thing was done. Sirius was all too quick to provide his editorialized view of the situation.

"Oh, it's because he left me money when he died. I found out a couple days ago she actually tried to contest the will and prevent me from coming into it, can you believe that? It's utterly mad."

Though she had been shocked at the news of this charming uncle being disowned, Colette was obviously less surprised about the second part of the story.

"Did she really?" She asked, slowly. "Have you—asked her why?"

"She doesn't even know I _know_."

"Well, you might try telling her—or speaking about it."

"She and I—aren't very good at that. We don't 'do' confrontation. It never ends well." He laughed, without humor. "Ditto my father—just as bad, really. It's no good trying to get the truth out of that pair of sphinxes."

 _This is why things were better when we just didn't speak to one another for several years._

She considered the problem for a long moment.

"What about your brother—perhaps you could ask him?"

"I already did!" Sirius exclaimed, annoyed at the mere memory of that irritating conversation two nights before. "He all but told me he thinks I'm an idiot for not figuring it out for myself. Of course, he always says things like that, the twit, but it was especially _grating_ because we'd had a great bloody row about—"

Abruptly, he realized his words and fell silent.

She, for her part, only looked up at him, blandly innocent in expression—though her eyes sparkled with mischief and, more alarming, the triumph he was starting to associate with those moments when her enormous curiosity had been satisfied.

Like, say—her musings on the mysterious absence of Regulus Black from the English party circuit, for example.

Sirius buried his head in his hands and swore, loudly.

"This has _not_ been a stellar week for me—" he muttered, along with a few choice curses. "—And my big, _fat_ mouth."

Her grin widened.

"You were very alarmed the night of the party when I said I thought the family must've been lying about him being in France—and now I know why." She stood up, coquettishly swaying about her skirts. "The rumor was true. You wanted to know its origin!"

"Yes, you're quite _brilliant_. A real sleuth." He groaned. "My life is full of those, at present."

He pushed off the wall, his shoulders tight with tension—though she hadn't noticed how serious his expression had gone, lost in her speculations as she was.

"And—" She lit up like a Christmas tree. "That's not all. _He_ was the one who—"

"—Colette—"

"He brought you together with your mother and father, didn't he? He is that mysterious person—"

"Look, you can't expect me to—"

"Is he in England, or—?"

"—If you're looking to find out where he is or why he's there, Miss Battancourt, let me tell you, here and now, that you're barking up the wrong tree!" Sirius snapped, coldly. "Content yourself with the knowledge he's not got a fiancée and leave it at that, alright?"

The French witch, who'd been on the edge of laughter, suddenly shrank under the weight of his fierce expression.

"Forget about what I was doing at the party, and forget about my brother," Sirius continued, coolness. "Unless you'd rather I go tell my mother what we're up to and have her send you back to France this afternoon."

Colette's face turned bright red, and she stared down at her shoes, mortified. Sirius had an immediate surge of regret at the sight—and at losing his temper with her.

"I'm…sorry," she mumbled, doleful. "I…I didn't mean to meddle in things I have no business with."

Sirius walked over to her—the crisp snow crunched beneath his feet. When he got there he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

 _Fuck_. She looked like she was about to cry.

"No, I'm sorry. You didn't meddle—that is, you _did_ —but I know you didn't mean any harm by it." She peaked up at him—a weight lifted from his shoulders, for there were no tears. "It's just a…delicate situation, that's all. My brother—"

He searched for a diplomatic way of putting it.

' _My brother is a cult defector holed up in my flat, where he and I are both being held hostage every night by your hostess, the mad matron of Regent's Park, and oh, by the way, did I mention my father is threatening to have me imprisoned if I don't learn to balance those account books in up to his draconian standards?'_

"—Has gotten himself into a bit of trouble, and he came to me for help. He's had to lie low for awhile—which is…partly to blame for the situation with my parents, but also—a few other things I can't tell you about."

"What sort of—?" She blushed furiously. "—Sorry, I…know you said not to ask."

Sirius's face softened.

"It's alright. You're only human, anyone would want to know—perhaps curious would-be novelists more than most." He smiled, but then the corner of Sirius's mouth went flat again. "It's—got to do with the crowd he's gotten himself mixed up in."

Her blue eyes widened, and then her lip, which was trembling from the cold and probably some residual embarrassment, stiffened with resolve.

"That's all I can say."

"Whatever it is." She nodded, sagely. "I'm sure you'll get him out of it."

Sirius felt the same queer jump in his stomach—pleasant and uncomfortable at the same time, a sensation like queasiness but…not.

"I hope that I do."

She gave him another smile of encouragement—and this time his stomach lurched.

"I need you to—promise you won't tell anyone about Regulus." Sirius took his hand off her shoulder—and, because he regretted it and missed the sensation of warmth, gently picked up her gloved hand. "Not your great-aunt, not anyone in my family—especially not Narcissa. It's very important."

"But—"

"—Please."

She made a gesture over her heart—a little criss-cross, the universal child's symbol for a promise kept. It reminded him of something Andi or Cissy would've done, when they were little girls and he and Reggie used to follow them around the creek at their grandparents' house.

"I will not tell a living soul. And I promise not to ask you about it—or even think about it."

He lifted that hand, and, in an unexpected act of gallantry, pressed it, still gloved, against his cheek.

"You can't control what you think about," he said, wryly. "Just…try not to go looking for answers."

"Why not?"

 _Because that curiosity of yours is going to get you into serious trouble._

He lowered her hand and released it, reluctantly.

"You may not like what you find." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked back out over the school grounds. "…I should—probably get going."

"Oh that's, right…" The wind was picking up, and Colette felt a chill run down her spine. "You have your appointment…"

He told her where to meet him and reassured her, after tucking the invisibility cloak under her arm, that she would be perfectly fine for a little while—worst came to worst, if he lost her, he'd send one of his favorite portraits, Sir Cadogan, the Mad Knight, to roam about the castle on a scouting expedition.

"Will you at least tell me who it is you're meeting?"

He shrugged. Colette was now nervous about asking him anything, clearly, and he wanted to put her at ease. Perhaps it was selfish, but he couldn't stand the thought of her feeling as though she couldn't talk to him about anything. She was so easy to talk to.

It would have been easy to tell her the truth—but some part of him held back—for her sake, not his own.

It would only pique that _damned_ curiosity of hers.

"Just an old professor." He grinned and lead her back down the staircase into the castle. "Catching up, you know."

"You're being awfully mysterious about it."

"I can't have you learning _all_ my secrets, Miss Battancourt." He gently draped the invisibility cloak over her—winking just as she blinked out of sight. "I'd run the risk of boring you."

* * *

It was hard not to compare _this_ summons to his father's.

He had stared at the statue of the gargoyle for nearly five minutes before muttering the password (" _Brandy butter!"_ ) that made it spring aside and allowed him to enter the spiral stairwell that lead up to the door. Dumbledore wasn't likely to shout—Sirius couldn't imagine him doing so, in all honesty, though it wasn't as though Orion was one for it, either, and hadn't what happened been _so much worse_?—but after his meeting with Moody, he was secure in the knowledge that his mentor was less than thrilled with his performance at Malfoy Manor.

 _He's not going to humiliate you, though. Not going to make you do his bloody Christmas shopping._

"Ah—Sirius." Albus Dumbledore, eyes bright and piercing as ever, glanced up from the copy of the day's _Prophet_ laid before him on his magnificent oak desk. "Come in, please."

It had not been so long since his school days, when a summons to this office had meant a disciplinary infraction so grave Professor McGonagall felt her superior must be told, and so it was with great trepidation that Sirius took a few cautious steps into the inner sanctum of the Headmaster's office.

"Sorry—I'm late." Sirius avoided looking Dumbledore in the eye—instead he wandered over to Fawkes's empty perch. "Got…held up."

He turned his face a little to spy Dumbledore's reaction—but the old man's face remained calm and pleasant and difficult to read, as always.

Sirius was barely late and not sorry at all. Though this meeting had been the ostensible reason for his return to Hogwarts, source and summit of so many happy years past, it had been the part of the visit he had looked forward to the least. Now the feeling of anxious anticipation for what Dumbledore might say to him regarding his dismal mission performance three nights previous was compounded by his resentment that this audience had taken him away from a perfectly enjoyable assignation with Colette.

 _With the—Battancourt girl,_ he corrected himself, weakly. _The French witch._

Though, given where the conversation had been going, perhaps it had been a good moment to extricate himself from _her_ company.

Dumbledore was, as usual, all polite courtesy.

"I hadn't even noticed the time—" He pushed his chair out and stood up. "I was quite lost in my thoughts—I find it happening more and more of late. I'm sure _you_ understand."

Sirius looked around from the perch, surprised to see where Dumbledore was pointing—towards the rune-covered stone of his Penseive, sitting next to his newspaper, its silvery surface glinting innocently in the light of the crackling fire. Dumbledore picked it up and gently placed it back in its cupboard, then gestured for Sirius to sit down. The younger man rebuffed the offer for a drink (rather curtly) and then regretted it, if only for the extra moment to compose his thoughts the act of watching Dumbledore pour it would have afforded him.

Professor Dumbledore spared him the trouble of an embarrassing apology by pouring two modest glasses of mead and pushing one in Sirius's direction—"in case he changed his mind." He wasn't thirsty—in fact, what he really would have liked was to light up (he needed to quit—he could barely afford the habit these days), but he didn't have the nerve to ask if he could smoke—but holding the stem of the glass gave him something to do, something to look at.

"I appreciate you taking the time to come and see me."

Sirius fidgeted in his chair.

"Do people _often_ ignore personal invitations for a meeting from you?" He asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Get a lot of skive-offs?"

Dumbledore smiled.

"Occasionally." Sirius felt his annoyance grow—the white mustache twitched. He was not in the mood to be humoured—not by Dumbledore, not by _anyone_. "For example—Mundungus did not turn up to an appointment just last week—and _that_ was one set by himself."

Sirius snorted and lifted the amber glass up to his eye. If he looked at Dumbledore through it, if the old man's face was distorted, perhaps he could summon the nerve to meet his eye.

Or, conversely, he could down the glass in one.

"I'm sure Dung had a very good reason for ditching," Sirius said, dryly. "That dodgy dragon's blood won't sell itself."

The corner of Dumbledore's mouth turned up.

"A _unique_ business opportunity, no doubt."

Dumbledore lifted his glass—pausing, almost as if were about to toast Mundungus and was hoping Sirius would join him in this amusement. But then he saw the expression on his old student's face, and realized the young man was in no mood to laugh at the foibles of one Fletcher.

He laid it back on the table, untouched.

"You must be wondering what it is I wanted to speak to you about," Dumbledore began, seriously. "That required you come all this way—in such weather."

A few flakes had begun to fall outside the window—the delicate sort, the kind that clung to the eyelashes and mittens and would only stick if the ground was frozen solid—which of course it was, because this was Scotland, and the ground was frozen four months every year.

He hoped Colette had the sense to not stay out on that snowy parapet alone. The thought of her catching cold niggled at him.

Sirius brushed it away, like snow off his shoulder.

"Not really." He lowered his glass back to the desk and pushed it a few inches with his finger. "Well, I mean—I can _guess._ I expect _it_ will follow the general theme of _most_ of my conversations the past few days."

"And what has that been?"

This question, combined with the fact that Dumbledore had the gall to look up at him, in that blandly quizzical way, as if he didn't know—it was _that_ that made Sirius lose his temper.

"Telling me off in every conceivable way, of course!'"

Sirius pushed his chair out, an almost overwhelming sense of restlessness overtaking him. Albus Dumbledore did not move, though his eyes carefully followed the younger man as he paced about the office

"The only question _I_ have is 'what is there _left_ to say? As far as _chewing me out_ goes, well—with all do respect, considering I'm risking life and limb for no salary—" He stuck his hand up at eye level and shook it. "—I'm a bit at my _limit_ there."

Dumbledore no longer smiled—but he did not appear angry, and certainly not chastened—not that Sirius had really thought his childish tirade would have that effect, not least of all because it was _he_ who was entirely in the wrong.

The old man gave Sirius a moment to collect himself—he could feel the heat in his face, signifying an almost involuntary embarrassment.

Professor Dumbledore surveyed him calmly, hands folded neatly on his desk.

"I did not summon you to the Scotland for the purpose of _chastising_ you, Sirius." The blue eyes caught his gaze—sharp and piercing. "Nor did I instruct Alastor Moody to do so, as I can only assume you _believe_ I did."

Sirius reached into his cloak for the cigarette packet, content to merely roll one around in his fingers to steady his nerves.

"You…know about that, then." Dumbledore tilted the crooked nose on which his glasses were perched down at Sirius, his expression one of polite incredulity. "He…said yesterday you didn't put him up to it, but I wasn't…"

There was an awkward pause.

"I suppose I—should have believed him when he told me it wasn't your idea."

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I assumed, Sirius—apparently quite rightly—that you had already had _more_ than your fill on _that_ score—" He paused, significantly. "And I trust you understand that I have not the luxury of so much free time that I can afford to use the little I have to call an Order member to my office for the purpose of _merely_ scolding him."

Sirius's face flushed scarlet.

"Nor, if I were to hazard a guess—does Alastor Moody, either, or indeed—" Dumbledore's voice turned gentler. "—Even your _father_."

He forced himself to meet Dumbledore's gaze.

"They've certainly made time for it this week," he muttered, bitterly. "Rearranged their schedules for it."

"Neither are idle flatterers, perhaps—but they are not men who are prone to rash words, either."

Dumbledore might as well have been staring through him.

"You weren't there," Sirius muttered, staring at the floor. "You didn't hear him."

An annoyingly familiar sigh from somewhere above Dumbledore's desk drew his gaze. Phineas Nigellus, as smug and self-satisfied as the day he'd been painted—looked down at his hapless descendent in the familiar manner of one who'd heard every damn word and passed on all the embarrassing bits to whoever had his well-oiled ear.

"Is there no such thing as _privacy_ in this country?"

Perhaps sensing that his predecessor was on the verge of lecturing his great-great grandson on the value of decorum and keeping his voice down in earshot of his ancestors, Dumbledore cleared his throat a little louder than was strictly necessary.

"I think, Sirius—given the circumstances—that _some_ allowances can be made to Orion for not being wholly in control of his emotions. He can hardly be expected _total_ rationality where you are concerned."

Sirius let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. He had been prepared to defend his position only a minute before, and now—it seemed childish and stupid to even attempt it. Frankly, hadn't he deserved worse from all of them?

"If you took my words as a suggestion of pettiness or spite," Sirius apologized, stiffly. "Please know I—I didn't mean it that way, sir."

The headmaster accepted his apology with cheer and good-humor, as always. In spite of himself and his sense of immense shame at all the blunders, Sirius felt his spirit lighten. Dumbledore had not brought him hear to remind him of his recent failures—indeed, he had known that Sirius had done a far better job torturing himself on that score.

Of course, it did leave the question open.

"I…so…what _was_ it you wanted to tell me?"

Dumbledore took a sip from his drink and lowered it back to the table, slowly.

"Two things." He sat up, eyes brightening. "The first, I'll admit, is a little selfish—I wanted to congratulate you." He beamed in his protégée's direction, totally immune to the look of shocked bewilderment on Sirius's face. "Or, perhaps more accurately—congratulate _myself_ , on my own excellent judgement in choosing you to carry out the task I set you."

Sirius opened his mouth to protest, make a sound of disbelief—but Dumbledore, able to preempt the question on his student's lips, continued, firmly—

"You _were_ the right man for the job, Sirius. You are doing better than I could have hoped—perhaps the _most_ important work of anyone in the Order."

Sirius stared at him for a long moment—and when his initial burst of incredulity had faded, he narrowed his eyes.

"I don't understand."

He waited for Dumbledore to say something, to explain—but he must've been able to see that Sirius had not spoken his piece yet, for he remained quiet and attentive—never taking his eyes off his young companion.

"And I don't agree." Sirius straightened his spine, all thought of the drink forgotten. "It seems to _me_ that between the two of us, my brother's shouldering the burden of usefulness for the Order—and for _you_. But—" He studied Dumbledore's face carefully, knowing full-well he wouldn't be able to read anything that the wily old wizard didn't want him to see. "— _Given_ the fact that we went to that party on _his_ information and got burned, perhaps you don't agree with my assessment."

Something flickered behind those electric blue eyes.

"Did Regulus tell you he wrote me?"

"No—but even a blind idiot like me _can_ figure things out for himself—it just takes a bit longer." He rubbed his chin. "My father was very angry with us both the next day—it wasn't long before I realized what it was Regulus had done to set him off." Sirius bit back a hard laugh. "He's not used to having to discipline my _brother,_ you see. All this sneaking around behind his back and sending _you_ messages has thrown him for a loop." Sirius toyed with the edge of his cloak. "To tell you the truth, it's thrown _me_ for one as well."

"He asked I not tell a soul," Dumbledore admitted, with no small regret. "Regulus never planned on anyone knowing what he had done—until much later, perhaps never. He thought his family might never learn what happened to him, that night in the cave. I wanted to honor his wishes in this—small way."

 _And of course, if you didn't, he might stop giving information._

He thought of his brother, spitting up green ooze on his doorstep, shaking so violently that for a moment—just a moment—Sirius hadn't recognized him, might've thought _he_ was the Inferi, except that back of the head, nape of the neck covered in blood, that curled up lump of a person was almost as familiar to him as his own reflection.

"Moody made it clear he doesn't trust Regulus," Sirius continued, not taking his eyes off Dumbledore. " _He_ seems to think that there's a chance my brother got cold feet and leaked that we were coming back to his old Death Eater mates. He _also_ implied you haven't written this theory off."

Dumbledore didn't deny it—but Sirius could never be sure with him.

"Look—if I'm going to continue with this 'important work' that you seem to think I'm doing—though _what_ that work is supposed to be is a mystery to _me_ , since I'm apparently grounded from all field missions for the foreseeable future—I need to know where you stand with _him_ —because, like it or not, this _is_ all personal for me."

There was a long silence that followed. Albus Dumbledore studied him, considering how best to voice his concerns about the suitability of Sirius's brother as an informant—but then he smiled, knowingly.

"That's all very reasonable." He drank some of his mead and stroked his long beard. "But I sense a mere verbal affirmation of my confidence in your brother won't do, in this case."

Sirius ran a hand through his frustration and stared down at his shoes, feeling his frustration grow. He needed to know that Dumbledore trusted _him_ , too—his judgement and his character.

He needed to know he wasn't being fed a line.

"What if—if we pretended I wasn't _me_ , but Moody?" Sirius looked up at him, suddenly. "And then you explained it all as you would _him_ , and as if I wasn't in the room or privy to the conversation?"

His old headmaster smiled—a playful look in his eyes.

"I'm not going to act like Mad-Eye," Sirius assured him, smiling in spite of himself. "Don't worry—I've learned my lesson about playing-acting. Would that be…" He struggled to keep a straight face. "…A thick idea?"

"I think my imagination is up to the task."

Dumbledore fixed his lined face into a sober expression—though the humor of it was never absent from his twinkling eyes—and he told Sirius to begin whenever he was ready. Sirius cleared his throat, feeling now as though he ought to have given himself the out—it would make it easier to do it 'as Moody' than himself.

"Well—Albus." He settled on a growl—it made him feel far less foolish than it should have. "You've put a hell of a lot of faith in Black."

"In both of them," Dumbledore corrected, gently. Sirius felt his ears redden.

"Let's stick to the turncoat Death Eater, for the time being."

He squinted, in an approximation of the way Mad-Eye always looked at one funny. Something about the ridiculousness of it all made it easier for him to admit his insecurities about the way the audience at the Ministry had gone. All the misgivings he was sure Moody felt about him, that he was beginning to wonder if the Order, if Dumbledore, if his own friends all shared—if he said it as bluntly as he imagined Alastor Moody speaking to his oldest friend, he could endure it.

"I don't trust him."

"You are well within your rights, of course." Dumbledore folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his chair. "What happened that night was very unfortunate. We were lucky both Frank and Sirius escaped the house unscathed. And I myself can offer no clear explanation how they would have known the plan, given the precautions we took."

Sirius raised his hand and pointed his index finger in his old headmaster's face—a move he had only ever seen Moody dare make towards him, and which he very much enjoyed doing now.

"But you didn't give me a choice, Dumbledore—did you? Didn't give me all the _facts_." He waved his hand around—he was amazed to see the old man remain as serene and calm as he would have if the real Moody had been there. "I stuck my neck out, sent my best man into the field on the information _you_ gave me—and from all accounts it turned out to be a _trap._ "

He leaned back in his chair, secretly rather eager to hear Dumbledore defend the choice. Just saying the words out loud made Sirius realize just what it must have looked like to Moody, to Frank—probably to Remus, too. Ever since that moment on the roof with Colette Battancourt when he realized what it was his father was so angry with Reg about, he'd had this niggling doubt in the back of his mind, eating away at him—an insect burrowing in, slowly infiltrating and infecting every part of the frail trust between the brothers.

It was too brittle—too fragile. Likely to snap in half if pushed too far.

Albus Dumbledore gave none of the signs of tempestuous inner turmoil that Sirius felt, however. His long fingers, steepled on the desk in front of them, tapped an even patter before his face. Would Sirius ever feel serenity like that in his life?

But no—he looked closer. In the eyes one could see it, if one looked hard enough—or if they knew what they were looking for.

"You know even better than I do that things are always what they seem, Alastor."

His temper flared—Sirius felt a stab of frustration, like a hot knife twisting in the arm—Dumbledore was always so damn opaque—he must've known what Sirius was after, but he was deliberately holding back, still treating his old pupil like a child.

"And you don't have any doubts, now?"

The old man smiled, serenely.

"None whatsoever," he said, with a kind of casual certainty that had Sirius's back up.

"Well, I don't suppose you'll tell me _why_!" He cried, angrily. "Why _should_ you trust him?"

Sirius realized, with embarrassment, that he had at some point in the course of this conversation stood up—but he couldn't for the life of him remember when.

Face red, he forced himself to stare above Dumbledore's head—and then found himself unpleasantly looking directly at the portrait of his own great-great grandfather, who from his painted expression of distaste at this outburst (and probably the entire feeble exercise) appeared to have never been more ashamed to call Sirius his own descendent.

"I never said I did." Dumbledore remained calm, though lost some of that whimsical playfulness that Sirius had always associated with him. "I trusted that his information was sound. A distinction—a fine one, true, but in this case—critical."

"What—"

"I tested the soundness of it beforehand, Alastor—tested Regulus, in fact. Why do you think I asked you to pull Gideon Prewett off the mission and put Regulus's brother on it instead?"

Any desire he had to pretend to be Moody vanished in an instant. Sirius sank back into the chair.

"What are you talking about?"

"I _knew_ if Regulus Black had any misgivings about the information he provided us—if he had heard even a _whisper_ that the Death Eaters involved knew someone might try to intercept that message—he would be compelled to reveal them to me as soon as he knew his brother would be the one sent out on the mission to retrieve it."

"So you…that is…"

Dumbledore was enjoying himself far too much.

"Why do you think I asked that you send Frank to Sirius's flat a full day in advance, to brief him on the mission in person?" Dumbledore's eyes danced with amusement as he watched whatever scales were left fall from Sirius's. "You were adamant that the mission briefing should be done no more than twelve hours before, after all! I find it hard to imagine you forgetting such a heated discussion."

Sirius stared at him, for a long moment—not quite able to believe what he was hearing.

"You were _hoping_ Reg would eavesdrop on us!" Sirius accused him, hotly—feeling somewhere between wronged and duped and not sure how affronted he should act. "You—you _wanted_ him to find out."

"Let us say—given the circumstances of his confinement, I thought it very likely he would figure out what you were up to well in advance of James coming to watch the flat in your absence."

In other words: he'd known Regulus would be bored out of his skull and have nothing better to do but poke his nose into Sirius's business. Which of course, in typical Reg fashion, he had—he'd figured it out probably before their mother had even asked about who Frank was at the dinner table.

 _"_ _Don't you know where he's going? I thought it was obvious."_

 _"_ _What's obvious?"_

 _"_ _That you and that_ Auror _Frank Longbottom think you're going to sneak into Malfoy Manor tonight in disguise."_

Just as Dumbledore had known he would.

"So you really _don't_ trust, Regulus, then."

Dumbledore smoothed his beard, looking circumspect.

"Why would you assume that?"

"Because you—well, you just said you felt you needed to test his information."

The older man's mustache quivered with something that looked suspiciously like a smile.

"Yes, but I understood myself to be speaking _then_ to Alastor Moody." He took another drink, then, kindly pushed Sirius's towards him in an encouraging manner. "I do not doubt his sincerity, or think Regulus would ever deliberately lead us astray— _I_ do not think." His eyes gleamed. "It is, however, prudent to have some form of secure proof for others who may be more…skeptical."

 _Like Moody._

It was only then that he realized that it had not been only Moody's views he had been parroting—but some small, shameful part of himself he didn't recognized. A wave of hot guilt churned in his stomach—and he suddenly felt as though he might be sick, right on Albus Dumbledore's desk.

The old headmaster seemed, against all odds, to understand.

"The 'mission' I was referring to in my congratulations was not the operation at Malfoy Manor, Sirius."

Something behind his spectacles glinted—knowingly, but not unkindly. He pushed the glass closer to Sirius, very gently.

"It _couldn't_ have been, could it?" Sirius stared moodily into the amber liquid. "I bollocksed _that_ up royally."

He understood, without his mentor saying it, that he meant the _mission_ he had given him that morning, in the dingy kitchen of his flat. The 'mission' still so inscrutable to him, that he didn't understand why he'd been given—or perhaps he did, if he were being honest with himself, and that was what terrified him.

"You _can_ trust yourself—and your own instincts," Dumbledore told him, quietly. "I would never have asked you to do otherwise."

He knew what Dumbledore was saying—that he should let his guard down, let himself trust his brother—trust his family.

 _The thing is, sir—I know them better than you do._

"Was _that_ the only reason you gave me that assignment?" Sirius asked, his own voice sounding far away to his ears. "As some form of—security?"

"I thought you would do well," Dumbledore admitted—and Sirius knew at once that he meant it, and it only made him feel worse. "And that the challenge would attract you and the encouragement do you good. I regret that it seems to have had the opposite effect."

Sirius gave up and took the glass again. Any feelings of lost confidence had started to fade the moment he realized he'd screwed up—only to be replaced by a sense of shame. If only he could explain what he'd been thinking.

 _Were you even thinking, then?_ The recklessness of that night, the purse raw _impulse_ of it—not even he could reason it to himself, looking back.

"I just—I didn't want us to have spent all that time and effort—and walk away with nothing to show for it. I thought if there was even a _chance_ …"

It was as close to an apology as he could muster.

"The information would not have been worth losing your life over, Sirius—even if you _had_ somehow managed to intercept that message—we couldn't trust it, knowing what we know now."

There was something that passed over Dumbledore's face—a strange, opaque look that he didn't understand.

"I'm sorry we didn't get it all the same," Sirius insisted, stubbornly. "I…I feel as though I let you down."

It was such a childish thing to say, and he was immediately embarrassed at having uttered the words out loud. Dumbledore was all too understanding.

"Apologies—are very often made for the wrong reasons," He said, after a short pause. Sirius couldn't help but feel the tone was rather more pointed than it had been up until this point. "And to the wrong people."

"What—"

"You owe _me_ nothing, Sirius."

He looked back up at Phineas Nigellus's portrait, thinking just how much his ancestor looked like the one person he knew Dumbledore was referring to. Judging by the look of censure on Professor Black's face, he shared his successor's views on what was owed Orion, still.

Sirius let out what felt like the longest sigh of his life.

"It doesn't prove he wasn't the one who tipped them off, though." Sirius gripped his knees, tightening his knuckles around them. "Regulus didn't want me to go. He kept saying he wasn't going to cover for me, if our parents asked what I was doing. He tried to talk me out of it."

"It was still a mission with attendant risks, Sirius—and you _are_ his brother. He cannot help but worry about you." Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "If he had known for a _fact_ you were walking into a trap he would have stopped you by force."

He opened his mouth to argue with Dumbledore, the familiar stirring of temper chafed against the idea of an outsider to his family lecturing him—but then he closed it again, for he knew, at heart, that the old man was right about Regulus—and probably a great deal besides.

"I wish I could make him out."

"Regulus?"

He nodded, staring into Dumbledore's fireplace.

"It's like he—he thinks he can switch sides without upending anything. He won't talk to me, he won't name names—it's as if he thinks he can somehow make it out of this without anyone being caught in the crossfire." Sirius shook his head. "I just can't understand what he thinks he's _doing_."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers on the table, considering the question.

While he waited, Sirius cast his eyes around the room. Dumbledore's comfortable and warm office was serene, the one sound the faint whirring of the instruments—not even Fawkes broke the silence of a Hogwarts blanketed in snow, for he was out on some mysterious assignment in parts unknown. Everything was identical to how it had been when Sirius was a student, and the headmaster's office, however much he associated it with punishment for his various misdeeds, had been a source of comfort—a refuge from a world that so often had treated him unjustly—at least, in his own mind.

Everything was the same as it had been—except Dumbledore himself, and that made all the difference. No longer did those kindly blue eyes peer out at him through spectacles, with the beneficence of a headmaster trying to guide the well-meaning and unruly pupil, always in danger of losing his way.

Sirius didn't know _what_ to call how Dumbledore looked at him now.

The old man cleared his throat, and Sirius looked up from his drink—filled with a sudden, violent apprehension of what was coming next.

"Why do you think Regulus went to the cave that night, Sirius?"

Sirius stared at him, blankly.

"Sorry— _what_?"

"Why did your brother defect from Lord Voldemort's ranks?" Dumbledore repeated, simply. "You must wonder. Do you know?"

Sirius slouched in his chair. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought about it—the question had been bouncing around his head for over a week, but it was jumbled up with so much else—and demanded so much more of him to answer—that he had placed it on the back shelf of his mind when no obvious answer came to him.

"I suppose he saw reason."

Dumbledore's smile was kind—but he shook his head, a gesture his former pupil recognized.

"Would you say he's shown a great many signs of changing his views?" The old man pressed, gently. "The values instilled in him by your parents—the importance of magical lineage—of the family name and traditions? Has he cast them off, as you have?"

Sirius pictured his brother—holed up in the flat, surrounded by a pile of family history—ignoring Lily pointedly when she came in the room, hissing at him across the dinner table to be polite and not start fights—that small, desperate look Sirius would sometimes see him give Orion's back, when he thought no one was watching—and which Sirius recognized, for he would catch glimpses of it in his own face in the mirror by the door.

"Not at all."

He was the same—he was Sirius's little brother, the twerp, the consummate Slytherin—the one who didn't speak up, who followed their mother and father in everything, bar none. The good son.

"Perhaps he thought he had something to gain by defecting." Sirius was swinging about wildly in his search for answers. "Or—maybe he saw the writing on the wall. Maybe he knows something we don't—he—got out before it all comes crashing down.

Dumbledore shook his head.

"I wish I could believe that were true, Sirius."

"He probably just realized what he got himself into—that it wasn't worth it."

"By your own admission, he is not behaving in a manner that suggests a full-throated embrace of the values of the Order of the Phoenix—" Dumbledore's expression turned shrewd. "And, quite frankly, he was, in some sense, in an ideal position where he _was_. A lower-ranking Death Eater with his family connections would land on his feet no matter which way the war went. He _was_ as safe as it is possible to be, in times like this. Now, however…"

It didn't take explanation for Sirius to understand what the old man was driving at. By going to the cave to retrieve Voldemort's horcrux that fateful night, Regulus had opened himself up to attacks from both sides—where he might've coasted through the war in relative anonymity, had he just gone along with things and not gotten any funny ideas.

Regulus was generally very good at doing that.

But now—he was not only a traitor to the Dark Lord—he was a professed ex-Death Eater who could end up standing trial and facing Azkaban, if Dumbledore did not exert his considerable influence in preventing it. Before he faced that possibility, he'd have to make it through the war—and they'd have to win…

All that for a gold locket and a scrawled note.

"So…you don't think it's _rational_ , what he's done?" Sirius asked, and he found his temper stirring. "You—what? Don't think he's in his right mind? That he did all this—in what, a moment of temporary insanity?"

Dumbledore retained his blank, bland expression—and this time, the sight of it incited his _protégée'_ s anger. Regulus was not unfeeling—his brother had a conscience, and a heart, however much it had strayed from the right path, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of righteous indignation on his behalf, combined with vague guilt that he was sitting here discussing the matter with someone who wasn't even a member of his own family.

"Do you have a better explanation?"

Sirius slammed a hand down on the desk.

"For God's sake— _you_ know what they are—the things they do to people, the things they've probably done to him, and—and made him do—!" The thought filled him with anger—at Regulus, Orion—and most of all, himself, for letting his brother get mixed up with them—for standing by and doing nothing. "I'm amazed my brother lasted as long as he did. Who could _stand_ it? How could he—"

He fell silent again.

The snow outside the castle was falling, thick and fast, now—the sun low in the sky, creating the perpetual twilight that marked the winter equinox—the deadest. A kind of stillness cocooned the castle, made the silence that stretched between he and Dumbledore seem deeper, somehow—more vast.

But it had to break—and it was the old man who did so.

"Why do you _think_ people change, Sirius?"

He looked out the window. Just visible was the edge of the great lake, where he and James and Remus and Peter had spent so many happy hours such a short time ago. The change that had come over them, whether it was sudden or gradual, could not be denied.

They no longer were what they had been—and they could not go back.

It frightened Sirius.

"I don't know," he said, honestly, turning back towards the desk, and the man behind it he was realizing he understood less and less. "I suppose—I suppose because they find—new things to believe in."

"I find that the best of us are rarely moved by pure principle." Dumbledore smiled. "It's for _people_ we change, not ideology or creed."

"I don't understand, sir. "

Albus Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, knowingly.

"If you wish to understand Regulus—" He smiled. "You could _start_ by asking him."

It was both caring—and a reproach, and Sirius could only hear the condemnation, not the kindness that was meant by it.

"I—I don't know how," Sirius admitted, feeling more vulnerable than he had the entire audience. "And he won't want—he doesn't want to talk to me."

Albus Dumbledore stood up, and Sirius knew, without being told, that the audience was almost at an end. It had been much shorter than he had imagined, and considering he had looked upon it with dread, he now found himself reluctant to leave the comfortable confines of the room.

He felt that, walking out of here, he would be leaving behind the last vestiges of boyhood.

What he was leaving it for was still unknown.

"You have considerable means and faculties, Sirius," Dumbledore pointed out, innocently. "Do you _truly_ believe you have exerted them to their fullest extent, in this?"

Sirius wished Phineas Nigellus would go back to Grimmauld Place. He thought if the painting cleared its throat loudly one more time he'd be tempted to throw his glass of mead at his head.

"You mean have I ' _tried my_ hardest'?" He asked, sarcastically. "Given it my _all_?"

Of course, Dumbledore knew the answer to that without question. He stood up from his desk and gave the younger man an encouraging pat on the arm, and a knowing smile.

"Understanding—is not always easy. But it is possible. And Christmas is as good a time as any for an honest conversation—" Dumbledore's eye glinted. "You will have plenty of time over the holiday in which to start one, at any rate."

The opportunity to voice his resentment on _that_ score was too irresistible to pass up. Dumbledore was, thankfully—and unlike Sirius's parents—not one to play dim.

"Just be honest—my father asked you to ground me, didn't he? He put you up to it."

"You are where I need you to be, Sirius," Dumbledore said, gently—but firmly. "You don't know the difference you could make—have made already."

"And _you_ don't know what you're asking may cost me."

Sirius clenched his jaw—and then he saw the frown, and the look of concern, and he regretted his words.

It was too late to take them back, though. Dumbledore frowned, eyeing him with distinct wariness.

"Is there something you wish to say to me?"

Sirius thought of his father—his face on the fire escape, eyes as cold and hard as flint—' _Oh, I daresay you'll do exactly as I say'—_ of Walburga and motorbike and the moment he had thought (hoped, wished) she might kiss his forehead after breakfast—of a stag, dog, rat and werewolf running about the Forbidden Forest—and of Colette, eyes as blue and clear as the sea, seeing as clearly through him as she had his disguise, and just waiting down the hall.

It was her face that stood out most vividly.

"Do you think there's a spy in the Order?"

It was not a question that the old man had been expecting—but it did not surprise him.

"Why do you ask me this?"

"They knew we were coming. _Someone_ told them. And if it wasn't my brother—it had to be— someone else."

Regulus had implied it—both of their minds had gone back to that morning, but whatever intelligence his brother's letters to their old headmaster contained, his idea of who the spy might be had not been among them.

Dumbledore read his thoughts.

"I do not know how Lucius Malfoy knew you and Frank were at your grandfather's party—for now, I can only…speculate." And he had no intention of sharing those speculations with Sirius, that was the unspoken subtext. He sighed. "For the time being, I want you to put the question out of your head."

Sirius finished his drink and got up.

"It's just—I can't help but think, well—" He grasped Dumbledore's hand, suddenly very aware of how brittle the grip was. "If we can't trust the Order—who _can_ we trust?"

Dumbledore let out another long sigh—and Sirius could hear in it the sound of a man who, for once, did not have an answer.

* * *

 **Happy New Year! Please, as always, let me know what you think. And if you're looking for more, I posted a Christmas story that takes place in this universe (check it out on my profile.)**


	22. Chapter 22

_"…You'll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose? Yes, it usually goes in families. Not always, though. Ever heard of Sirius Black? You must have done — been in the papers for the last couple of years — died a few weeks ago —"_

 _It was as though an invisible hand had twisted Harry's intestines and held them tight._

 _"Well, anyway, he was a big pal of your father's at school. The whole Black family had been in my House, but Sirius ended up in Gryffindor! Shame — he was a talented boy. I got his brother, Regulus, when he came along, but I'd have liked the set."_

 _He sounded like an enthusiastic collector who had been outbid at auction."_

 _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 22**

* * *

The suits of armor were not as fine as those that graced the halls of Beauxbatons, perhaps—but Colette thought they had far more "personality."

The whole castle did, in fact—one got the sense that it had been fondly, if haphazardly, built up, piece-by-piece, in the centuries since the ancient fortress had been first discovered by Hogwarts founders—and that central planning had _never_ been a great priority.

Colette liked it.

It was a far cry from her own school, with its formal gardens and palatial, austere 17th century architecture. Colette had never much liked Beauxbatons as a building. It was neoclassical—a chateau might be grand and beautiful, but it simply didn't offer the same scope for imagination as the ancient castle.

Both schools were in the mountains, but _that_ was where similarity ended. While the constructors of Beauxbatons had attempted to flatten and bend the natural world to their will, Hogwarts' had instead used it to their advantage—fortifying the ancient stone, carved from cliffs and craggy peaks, raising the castle up and out of the rugged landscape. It lent the whole place an atmosphere pleasantly unaffected, refreshingly bold.

Rather like her newfound companion.

 _They do things differently in Britain_ , she thought, and the feeling of him pressed against her as she lay in the snow rose up in her mind like water spilling from the edges of an overflowing bathtub. Colette's face flushed, and though there was no one around to see her undoubtedly silly, insipid expression, she was grateful for the invisibility cloak that shielded her from view all the same.

The more time she spent with him, the harder her resolution became—and it was also becoming increasingly obvious that her fear of Mrs. Black's revenge was _not_ the primary reason for putting off telling him the truth.

 _If he knew the truth—if he knew what you were keeping from him…_

Of course… _"secrets keep things interesting"…_ wasn't she just following one of his maxims by concealing it?

No, in the time she'd had to explore the castle alone, she'd had time to think—and Colette knew the truth.

She was enjoying herself far too much to tell him.

The girl glanced up at the snoozing portrait of Ulric the Oddball and sighed—quietly, so as not to alert him to her presence, for she could be clumsy in a long dress, and more than once she had almost tripped on the hem of the invisibility cloak as she wandered through halls and corridors, growing almost as lost in Hogwarts as she was she in her current predicament.

Her heart pounded just at the _thought_ of him.

If Sirius Black had been only a handsome face, Colette wouldn't have felt this way—in fact, she rather wished he wasn't _so_ striking, for he would be easier to look in the eye, then—and probably far less arrogant.

No, far worse than his looks—and more dangerous to _her_ by a mile—was that Sirius Black was _interesting._

His experiences were broad and varied, compared to hers—he had rubbed shoulders with wizards higher and lower than her by far, and his opinions and canny remarks exhibited a keen and penetrating mind—one that took nothing from her own narrow social experience for granted.

Colette had spent eighteen years training herself, to no avail, to never ask "why?"—and Sirius's motto in life was, " _why not_?" He was a wizard of possibility, of opening doors, and when he offered her, who had been stifled and cloistered and penned in for so long, the key to escape—how could she not turn it?

He was interested in _her_ , most intoxicating of all.

It was a sensation Colette had never known—certainly not from men. Her mother had always encouraged her to assume that the thoughts and feelings of witches were of little concern to their fathers—certainly her own was a simple man, neither capable nor interested in understanding his daughter's interior life—and of only marginal concern for their husbands.

She had glimpses of other possibilities—every once in a while she thought her English grandmother on the verge of saying something of a corrective nature towards Fabienne, but Eulalie operated on the strictest principle of non-interference where the upbringing of her grandchild was concerned. By the age of sixteen Colette had come to assume that her mother, being a sensible woman and far better versed in the ways of men than her ignorant daughter, was basically right, and it would be better not to get her hopes up on that front.

 _That_ was before she met Sirius.

It was impossible for the embers of natural sympathy between them not to be stoked by the fact, apparent to her from several days acquaintance, that he was desirous of the one thing she knew what it was to be desperate for, deep in your secret soul, above everything else.

Understanding.

And she _wanted_ to understand him. Which, naturally, required her to be around him—listen to his stories and laugh at his jokes and if—it _also_ required she withhold certain… _details_ from him, well—that was the cost, and she was more than willing to pay it.

Her conscience niggled at her forehead like a bad cold.

Still deep in her thoughts and hardly aware of her surroundings, Colette unthinkingly tiptoed up to peer into the visor of the tallest suit of armor in the drafty hallway—so when it began to bellow 'The Holy and the Ivy' and waggle its arms about, she was so shocked she stumbled backwards into its neighbor.

She caught it by the arm—but by _then_ it was already too late.

The invisibility cloak snagged onto the armored glove, and in her desperation to keep it on her, Colette inadvertently rammed into the side of the next closest, causing a chain reaction—each empty, enchanted suit of armor knocking over the next, like a chain of domino tiles.

The sound of destruction echoed down the otherwise serene hallway, and within a minute every portrait on the floor was awake and whispering, spreading the news of her folly to whatever people were present.

Exposed and bright red, Colette waved her wand feebly at the armor (nervousness always made her spell-casting worse, and this was no exception) trying desperately to get it up, for the invisibility cloak was her only protection against being caught alone in a place she had no business being. The armor under which the cloak was stuck rolled over, wedging the silvery cloth underneath its metal torso, while the whispering grew louder—the remaining, erect armored guards twisted their heads in unison in the direction of the northern passage (an ominous sign, if ever there was one)—

"Damn!" she cursed—the only one she knew in English.

In her desperation, Colette abandoned her wand, grabbing the edge with both hands and pulling as hard as she could—there was a fumble, but no tear, and she managed to dislodge it and throw it over herself _just_ as a miserable looking-man in a moldering tailcoat rounded the corner, an equally shabby tabby cat at his heels.

"Caught in the act—we _have_ him, my sweet—"

Forgetting she was invisible, Colette shrunk towards the wall in fear. The man peered about, eying the mess of armor lying in a pile on the floor with knowing dislike.

"Gone—still, he can't have given us the slip for long." The cat gave a trill of agreement, and he stroked her ears fondly. "We'll get him. It's only a matter of time before—"

"—What is all _this_ , Mr. Filch?"

The crisp voice startled her, and Colette jumped and turned her head to see from whom it came. A no-nonsense witch in dark green robes and a pointed hat glided over to the carnage Colette had inadvertently wrought from the opposite direction of this Mr. Filch.

"Professor McGonagall—you must've heard—"

"—An utter commotion," she finished for him. "What happened here?"

Her face and manner bore the distinct stamp of authority—whoever she was, clearly she was in a position above that of the man. The wizard— _was_ he a wizard? He had no wand, but surely no muggles would be allowed _here—_ bowed, a little, disappointment and grudging respect mingling freely in his expression.

"It's the work of an intruder, Professor. I got here right after they came crashing down—he must've just gotten away, but I'm confident I can—"

"' _He_ '?" she repeated, raising one eyebrow. Colette guiltily shifted from one foot to another. "You seem to be quite in the know about this business, Argus. Please—make your meaning clear."

Mr. Filch's face darkened.

"I have reason to believe _Sirius Black_ is about the castle." Colette stepped forward—Filch had lowered his voice, and she could not miss this. "And if he _is_ lurking about, it'll be _his_ work, make no mistake."

Professor McGonagall's lip twitched, oddly.

"It may well have been Black—but _he_ is not an intruder in the castle today."

Colette inched closer to the one remaining upright suit of armor. The old caretaker seems just as shocked by the news, and his ruddy face went red with anger.

"He's here?"

"With the headmaster," she said, shortly. "By prearrangement."

He scoffed—then quickly fixed his tone to be more respectful.

"I… apologize, Professor McGonagall. I, er—I didn't know."

Colette's blue eyes widened in shock—Sirius had come to the castle for a meeting with Albus Dumbledore, of all people! Even in France, everybody knew who Dumbledore was—Colette's maternal grandfather had met the wizened old warlock, and even had confessed to grudging respect, in spite of Dumbledore's "shockingly progressive" political views.

But for what purpose were they speaking? Oh, damn her curiosity, it would be _impossible_ not to ask.

"Not at all." McGonagall's nostrils flared slightly. "I was _supposed_ to meet him at the gates myself—but when I walked down, I happened to see Hagrid at the edge of the Dark forest, and he mentioned having run into Black wandering about the grounds himself at his leisure nearly two hours ago."

They exchanged a dark, knowing look.

"How did he get in?" Filch demanded. At his feet his cat mewed—was Colette crazy, or was she sniffing in _her_ direction? "The gate's locked."

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips.

"I am quite as baffled by the matter as you."

Colette didn't think she sounded baffled at all—far from it. She was quite sure this sharp-eyed witch who had been Sirius's head of house—for Colette knew that was who this was, so plainly did she match his description of his schoolboy adversary—knew his number perfectly.

"But you may rest assured, Argus—I have _every_ intention of finding out."

There followed a discussion between the professor and caretaker about the matter of setting right the suits of armor, and Colette found herself breathing a quiet sigh of relief when the former sent the latter on his way, muttering to himself about the things he put up with from her students, and something that sounded suspiciously like "Black and Potter."

Professor McGonagall shook her head and tutted, obviously as glad to see the back of Filch and his cat as Colette was.

The French girl was just about to inch her way away from the armor and back towards the wall, where it would be safe to wait out McGonagall's continued presence in the vicinity, when the older witch—far cleverer and less prone to nervous fits of mediocre magic than she was—waved her wand at the pile of rusted metal and helmets sprawled out over the floor, after which they flew into the air and began setting themselves right.

Unfortunately for Colette, a severed silver arm snagged on the edge of her invisibility cloak, and in an elegant move that many a Muggle magician would have envied, pulled the artifact off her with a flourish, leaving her completely exposed in the middle of the hall.

She didn't even have the wherewithal to run—instead just stood there like a fool, while Professor McGonagall blinked in mild surprise at this young girl appearing out of nowhere before her.

"Well…it would seem Mr. Filch was _half-_ right."

Colette stuttered gibberish and then forced a smile that could only be described as 'desperate'. McGonagall's sharp eyes took her in in one sweep.

"You're not one of mine."

"Ah—I…"

Any hope that she bore that she could pass herself off as a particularly forgettable Hogwarts student to this forbidding looking witch died quickly.

This professor had been caught off-guard by the girl's sudden appearance, clearly—but she was no fool.

Colette gulped.

"Who are you?" Her eyes darted to the invisibility cloak, still hanging of the edge of one of the suits of armor, then back to Colette. "And how long have you been—how did you get into this castle?"

"Er… _Je ne parle pas anglais._ "

McGonagall repeated her question, more insistently—Colette, feeling a little more confident, affected a vacant and confused look and repeated herself.

She had not thought Sirius's advice would be so helpful when he had given it an hour before.

 _"What if someone should ask me a question I don't know how to answer, or I should get stuck, or trapped—"_

 _"Easy—answer in French." His smile had been easy. "Better still—pretend you can't speak English altogether."_

 _"How is_ that _supposed to help?"_

 _"It'll at least throw them off for a bit. English people don't know how to handle foreigners, as a general rule. Something about living on an island…"_

 _"That strategy didn't help_ you _, I recall, when_ you _tried it."_

 _He smiled and tweaked her ear, affectionately._

 _"Well, you'll just have to prove how much cleverer than I am you are."_

It appeared in this case, she had lucked out—Professor McGonagall had so far not even attempted to stumble through the four or so French phrases she had known her grandmother's English visitors to occasionally use.

"How—did— _you_ — _get_ —here?" McGonagall repeated, with growing irritation.

 _"Je ne comprends pas ce que tu dis."_

"Oh, for pity's sake—I don't care _who_ you are, you shall have to come with me—" McGonagall grabbed her, politely but firmly, by the shoulder. "—Perhaps Filius is still in his office, _he_ could make something of you—"

She allowed herself to be steered in the direction of the southern passage—and even threw a few more gibberish French phrases in for good measure, for now that she was fully committed to the thing, there was something oddly freeing about the act.

"That is quite enough, young woman," Professor McGonagall replied, flustered. "If we are not to understand each other, better we remain silent until a translator can be found."

Colette was just starting to think her luck was turning for the better, for she had bought herself some time to come up with an explanation for her presence in the castle, when she received another nasty shock.

"Oh, Minerva—good! _Just_ the woman I was looking for—!"

The color drained from Colette's face as none other than Professor Slughorn rounded the corner. The portly Slytherin had exchanged his cloak for a smoking jacket and a jolly fez, and the jovial expression on his face slipped into one of surprised puzzlement when he noticed the slight, pale and very familiar witch standing next to his colleague.

"Why it's—Miss Battancourt." He froze. "Merlin's Beard, when did _you_ get here?"

Professor McGonagall's hand dropped from Colette's shoulder.

"You know this girl, Horace?"

"Know her—of course I _know_ her. Eulalie Fawley's granddaughter—I just had a most delightful lunch with her—we left her in the inn, because she had a bout of illness." He looked her over, concerned. "She seems to have recovered splendidly, though! Did you bring her up to the castle, Minerva?"

"Of course _I_ didn't," McGonagall said. "I just found her here by these suits of armor, hiding under _this_ —"

The held out the invisibility cloak for him to inspect. Slughorn gave it a very thorough once-over and remarked with great interest that he'd never seen one of its kind. Colette stood stock-still, grateful that the object was of more interest to them than she was.

Slughorn's gushing over it didn't last long, though. He turned his eyes back on the girl.

"Of course, you couldn't have used _this_ to get through the gates, my dear," Slughorn said, cheerily. "So it doesn't explain how you got up here on your own."

"I have been trying to ascertain that myself," McGonagall snapped, impatiently. "Perhaps you could spare us this continued farce and simply _ask_ her how she did it. I never had your head for French."

Slughorn peered at McGonagall in a manner that suggested he thought her suggestion uncharacteristically dim.

"Goodness, Minerva, why would you need French?"

McGonagall's head snapped around.

"Because—well—it's all the girl's been speaking in."

Slughorn guffawed loudly.

"Curious! Curious indeed."

"Why?"

"Well, she was _quite_ fluent in English at _lunch_. Chattering away about their shopping and sight-seeing."

Colette was about to stutter out whatever half-baked excuse came to her head, when the only thing that could have made the situation worse happened.

Sirius rounded the opposite corner, and, upon spotting only the back of Colette's head, waved cheerily and shouted—

"Alright, done—sorry to have kept you waiting. If we hurry we still have time to make it up to Gryffindor—"

Sirius Black slid to a halt in front of the trio.

"—Tower…"

All four of them stared at one another.

"Oh. Hello—all. Well, I, erm—"

He met each of their gazes in succession—letting his eyes drift from Colette's mortified terror, to Slughorn's bemused curiosity, though _that_ was marked by the hard shrewdness the potions master always masked well, and at last landed on McGonagall, who had her arms crossed and was giving him a look he knew far too well.

"—This is…quite a party, isn't it?"

There was another pregnant pause—in which Colette tried very hard not to look as though Sirius's presence had any effect on her and failed miserably.

McGonagall's eyes darted between them with a keen penetration which suggested that this was, perhaps, not the first time she had caught Sirius meeting a girl in this castle.

To no one's surprise, it was Slughorn who spoke first.

"I say, _Sirius_ —" Slughorn's eyes followed the same path his colleague's had. "What in the name of Merlin are—what the devil is going on here?"

"I think Black will have to explain that for us _all_." McGonagall crossed her arms. "Unless his _friend_ would care to, when she's recovered from the illness that rendered her temporarily incapable of speaking English."

Colette's face blushed bright crimson, proving McGonagall's point. Professor Slughorn was, while not quite as quick on the jump as his colleague, fast catching up to her way of thinking.

"His _friend_?" Horace repeated. "Do they know each—oh. _Oh_ …"

The young witch and wizard shared a look of profound dismay—the criminals caught in the act. The girl turned to Sirius and actually stamped her foot.

"Oh, I _told_ you it wouldn't work!" Colette moaned, giving into the reality of their situation. "What a foolish idea."

"It _would've_ worked, except you chose the wrong witch to try it on." He shot his old head of house a rueful look. "And to think—" Sirius shook his head and laughed. "She wanted to meet you."

"A great compliment, I'm sure," McGonagall replied, dryly, before turning to her colleague. "I believe you were looking for me, Horace, before we stumbled upon this… _assignation_."

"Never mind _that_ , Minerva, what about—"

"—It seemed rather urgent a _moment_ ago."

The rotund figure was still staring between Colette and Sirius with confusion—though his puzzlement was quickly turning to shrewd understanding.

"Oh—well," he said, distractedly. "It was—about that wine Albus gave you, at the staff party. I was hoping I could—have it. It's a particular favorite of my guests, but I think that—"

She barely controlled the involuntary eye-roll.

"—Of course. I don't begrudge you wine." Her sharp eyes fell back on the two guilty parties. "While I'm fetching it, you can return this girl to her companions—and perhaps bring Black along, so he can explain to them how she came to be in his company."

All humor drained from Sirius's expression in an instant.

"I will do no such thing."

It was such a commanding, forceful—and utterly, deadly serious statement that both McGonagall and Slughorn were momentarily struck dumb.

"I can't go see them, and they can't know I was with her. That's a non-negotiable." He looked between his old professors, all schoolboy bravado absent. "In fact, before this conversation goes any further, I'll need a promise from you both that you won't tell anyone _else_ that we were together, either."

Slughorn had never seen this side of his former pupil, and so he was rather too bemused to be angry at such an absurd demand being placed on him with no provocation. Professor McGonagall, on the other hand, who was not one who took well to being given orders at the best of times, clearly found the imperious tone from one of her most notorious recent charges galling.

"This sounds like a heavy matter, Black," she remarked, tartly.

"Life or death, in fact."

It took all her powers of resistance not to roll her eyes.

"Perhaps you should have considered the gravity of your situation _before_ you sneaked off with this young woman—"

"—I admit my actions were…ill-advised." Sirius tilted his head towards McGonagall, trying to convey in his expression and tone that this was not a mere matter of saving face. "But I'm telling you, Professor McGonagall, I wouldn't insist on secrecy if it wasn't _very_ important."

He considered his next words with care.

"I think even _Professor Dumbledore_ would agree with me."

She considered him for a long moment—her sharps fixed on him with quite a different expression than she had before. Colette wondered if it had something to do with this mention of the mysterious Dumbledore.

The silence was broken by an indulgent chuckle from Slughorn.

"Now, now—Minerva, don't be _too_ hard on him." The potions master smiled. "Many a wizard would just as rather not face his _mother_ in the best of circumstances."

Colette's face flushed crimson, while McGonagall's eyebrows flew straight up into her hairline.

"Horace, am I to take that to mean your _guest_ is—Mrs. Black?"

"And her niece—Narcissa," Horace supplied, cheerfully. "They're all up from London for the day. As I understand it, the girls are there for a holiday visit."

McGonagall rounded on Sirius, who had scowled at the mention of his cousin's presence in the party.

"This young woman is staying with your parents, Black?" Colette rocked back on her heels, nervously. "Is that correct?"

Sirius merely snorted in response, but Colette nodded, meekly.

"I am…Mrs. Malfoy's particular guest."

McGonagall's expression and demeanor changed, at this news—she seemed to be doing some very shrewd thinking.

"I wonder that you chose to keep your appointment with the headmaster today, Black."

In spite of everything, she could not keep that small trace of humor out of her voice. Evidently, Colette thought, watching her companion as he fidgeted in front of his knowing professors, his boyish fear of his mother's wrath was known to more than just his family.

"Knowing—who you might run into, _apart_ from Hagrid."

Sirius sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets—a juvenile gesture more familiar to his teachers than his strange, newly found urgency.

"It's not _her_ I'm worried about—" Sirius stopped himself. "Well, not… _mostly_."

McGonagall's expression grew grave—she seemed to be viewing Sirius and his request under a very different light, now that she had this new information.

"You do like playing with fire, Black."

"Always have." He jerked his head towards Colette. "But I won't let others get burned for my mistakes."

McGonagall looked between the three others. They were all staring at her, deferring to her judgement—Black in particular, whose eyes burned in his face, so intently was he watching her as he waited for her decision.

Minerva McGonagall let out a long sigh.

"Well—I cannot say I _approve_ of this _…_ but—" She gave Sirius a final, piercing look. "—I think I _may_ have an idea."

Sirius gave Colette a reassuring look and squeezed her hand, gently.

"Just tell us what to do."

* * *

A discreet cough from the corner of Mrs. Prewett's dressing room broke the silence.

Lucretia was accustomed to long stretches of quiet where her only sibling was concerned. Orion was not a great talker by nature, and they had passed many a comfortable—if dull—evening in the schoolroom together when they were children where scarcely a word was said between them.

Orion tended to (consciously or unconsciously, Lucretia could not say) _ease_ his way back into the world of the living with some small sign to his companion—the tapping of a finger on a glass, a sigh or sneeze, the shuffling of papers or prodding of a log on the fire with a poker. These sounds always prefigured a mild remark or query as to some point in his reading.

Mrs. Prewett had the idea that this tendency came from some long-held notion of Orion's that to speak without giving advance warning was a great bother and imposition to those around one.

It would have to be an idea that came from Melania—for no one could say either she or their father had _ever_ waited for a 'by-your-leave' for whatever passing remark came into their head, rash or no.

So it was, that, upon hearing the tell-tale cough, she expected within five seconds or so to finally have some verbal clue as to what had brought him to her home on this miserable Saturday afternoon.

"Do you think I—shut my eyes to the truth?"

Lucretia lowered her ivory hairbrush to the armoire slowly.

For all his predictability, _that_ was the last thing she would have expected to spring from his lips.

Mrs. Prewett looked up in the mirror and towards her brother, sitting inconspicuously in the corner of her dressing room on a chair she usually flung her dressing gown and discarded gowns. He had been brooding there silently for almost twenty minutes, but had obviously given up on waiting for her to ask him what it was that had brought him so far out of his way.

Clearly he was in a strange mood. She could count on one hand the number of times he had ever visited her at home—and never without prearrangement.

"What an extraordinary question!" She rolled the pot of cream from which she had been applying color to her cheeks between her fingers. "No more than _most_ people. I daresay less than many."

Orion let out a sigh of impatience.

"I'm serious, Lucretia."

"So am I!"

She turned around in her chair to face him.

"Everyone tells lies to themselves, 'Rion. It's only a matter of how good one is at making them _stick_."

She expected Orion to argue with her, but instead he only slouched lower in his chair, brooding over her words.

"Was that accusation leveled at you today, perchance?"

He glanced up at her, and the flash of his eyes was more telling than words.

"In a—manner of speaking."

Lucretia returned to the business of fixing her hair. Orion was not one to let an idle comment bother him, and if she was not certain that Arcturus would never say such a thing, she was tempted to ask if it was their father who had accused him of it.

Honesty was not a virtue that Arcturus—or indeed, the Black clan writ large—had ever held in very high esteem.

"Well, if it came from that _son_ of yours, I must say—he's a fine one to talk about lies. He tells himself a great deal more than most." She glanced over her shoulder—Orion was hanging on her words, though trying in vain not to let her see it. "The poor boy's begun to believe his own tall tales."

"To which in _particular_ do you refer?"

At this deliberately offhanded remark, his sister gave a wicked smile.

"Those of his supposed conquests, for one." She watched the flicker of surprise in 'Rion's face and allowed her grin to widen. "I used to think he was all Burgie—now I see there's a great deal more of _you_ in him than I realized. He's got the 'noble martyr' streak in him a mile long," she added, before he could ask what flattering comparison she was about to draw between himself and his errant son.

"And of course, Sirius is forever trying to ape you in hiding how he feels, and being cool and detached, though he's _dreadful_ at it—he'll take any bait thrown at him." She turned in her seat. "I'm afraid he did not inherit that particular talent of yours."

She had expected this light-hearted rib at Sirius to cheer him up, but it had the opposite effect. If she had been a little less flighty in disposition, Mrs. Prewett would have realized that it was her last words which had struck the nerve that caused him to shudder and recoil.

"Am I— _so_ good at hiding how I feel?"

This intensely sincere question caused Lucretia to feel an alarming pang in her chest. There was nothing rhetorical about it, and though he never raised his voice or changed his steady intonation, the underscore of deep urgency with which Orion asked was something she was unused to hearing from her younger brother.

As she often did when confronted with the uncomfortable side of life, Lucretia chose to ignore it.

"Not from _me_. Of course, I have known you the longest. I daresay most people wouldn't be able to tell."

He fell silent again, mien gloomy and more troubled than it had been before—if that was possible. For Lucretia, for whom conversation must always be directed in the cause of lightening rather than burdening the conversant parties with troubles, this was an exceedingly vexing state of affairs.

She tilted her head, and considered another tact to take.

"Of course, _sometimes_ Sob hits on it, and I think I see a glimpse of the thing, but I'm _sure_ it's quite by accident—not at all studied or deliberate, and if one can't exhibit it on command, what good is it for, really?"

"What in the name of Salazar Slytherin are you blathering on about, Lucy?" Orion demanded, churlishly. "What is this 'it' you keep talking about?"

Lucretia preferred an irritable brother to one drawn so completely into himself, so she only smiled serenely at his scowl.

"Oh, _you_ know, Orion—the Black mask."

Her brother stared at her for a long while—having no apparent familiarity with this turn of phrase, or to what it referred, he was struck momentarily dumb. Eventually, however, when Lucretia was less than forthcoming, he was compelled to demand she explain herself more clearly.

"It's that special trick of the family—well, I should say, _some_ of the family. You must know what I'm speaking of, for you're by far and away the best at it of the lot of us."

She described to him, in frank language, her theory that it was this singular Black trait—to wipe all emotion and affect the deepest depths of inscrutability to the world and, occasionally, to each other—that had always given the house its unique edge.

"I've never heard of anything of the kind."

"Well, you know me. I like to name things—you know what I'm _talking_ about, in any case." She shrugged. "My only point was that you have perfected the art of self-concealment—you're even better than Papa at that trick."

Lucretia tapped her chin, circumspectly.

"You know, I think that's the real reason other wizards rarely warm up to you, 'Rion. They never know what you really think—and probably assume the worst."

"They aren't the only ones that do, apparently," he said, voice heavy. "Apparently my own sons cannot make me out."

Lucretia pricked her ears at this—his bitterness was unmistakeable, though she was still at a loss for the exact source of it. Orion had been like this, to greater or lesser extent, since the night of Papa's party—no, even earlier than that. When had this gloomy pall settled over him?

If she didn't know the exact origin, she at least knew which two young wizards were helping it along.

"Oh, I think Regulus can—at least better than Sirius." She looked up at him. "He's got a talent for it himself—soon enough he'll outstrip you."

Orion raised his eyes to her, and she knew at once what he was going to ask.

"And my wife?"

Mrs. Prewett laughed.

"As she didn't realize you were in love with her for six years, I very much doubt it."

The expression that flitted across his face—the glint in his eye before those even, handsome features slid back into a blank, and he fell back into that brooding silence again—was not one that even Lucretia, who believed she knew him best, recognized.

* * *

"Ah—here—the bottle of claret that Horace wanted to— _requisition_."

Professor McGonagall pulled the liquor off a shelf above her desk. The fire in the grate crackled merrily, while a stack of term papers, half-graded, lay strewn about the table, next to the remains of the Transfiguration professor's afternoon tea.

It was far more relaxed than Sirius had ever seen this room. Of course, he'd never spent the Christmas holiday at school, so he had never seen how she spent it.

Under different circumstances it would almost have been cheery.

"Do you mind, Miss Battancourt?" McGonagall asked the girl, over her shoulder, as she handed the bottle back.

Colette accepted it into her trembling hands and stuttered out a reply.

"Of—of course not, _professeure._ "

"Thank you." She turned her dark eyes on the young man. "I trust, Black, that your mother's marked preference _does_ merit this being taken from my private stores. I was rather looking forward to drinking it myself."

"Provided I'm not the one who has to take it to her, I will refrain from comment."

Her dark eyes glanced up from the parchment she had picked up from the desk to read.

"I find it difficult to imagine you doing anything of the kind."

Sirius gave Colette a sideways look, wondering if, in this moment, she felt as much like a child who had been called to the headmistress's office as _he_ did. He was glad he wasn't in a position to ask.

Surely it couldn't be worse than the profound embarrassment they had both felt at Slughorn's _comments_ once he had realized what was going on—or what he _thought_ was going on.

 _("I quite understand preferring this handsome young devil's company to a broken-down duffer like myself," Slughorn had chortled, immune to the mortification on the girl's face. "But you didn't have to pretend to be ill, did you, Colette? That seems a bit extreme." "That's not, you're totally misreading the—" "And you, Sirius—you rascal—" The wink and aggressive nudge in the stomach made it all so much worse. "Quite a way of getting around your mother's chaperonage rules.")_

Utterly mortifying.

"Now, young woman—" McGonagall drew him back to the present with a brisk clap of her hands. Sirius noticed, with some resentment, that she still had James's invisibility cloak tucked firmly beneath one arm. "If you follow me, I will take you to Professor Slughorn's study and your…friends. Black—" She turned back in Sirius's direction. "I wanted a word. Please wait here."

 _Well, it's not as thought you've given me a choice—you know I won't leave without that cloak you're holding hostage._

When they'd set out from Hogsmeade, _this_ had not been how he'd imagined saying goodbye to Colette—with her, standing in front of the old battle-ax in the doorway, looking so uncertain and lost, while he stared at her stupidly next to a tartan biscuit tin from across the room.

"Now's—not a great time."

"Have a biscuit while you wait. Make yourself comfortable."

"But—" One look from her and he fell silent. Better not to press his luck—she had said she would help them, and Sirius knew better than to test her resolve on this point. " _Fine._ "

He walked over to Colette, determined at least to shake her hand goodbye. McGonagall looming over her shoulder certainly took the romance out of things.

"I had a good time today."

There were many other things he could have said—that he wanted to say—but in mixed company, he would have to hope his eyes communicated the rest.

"So did—" She stopped short, then lowered her voice. "When will I get to see you again?"

McGonagall cleared her throat. Sirius lifted up Colette's hand and gave it a firm squeeze and solemn shake.

"I'll, erm—be in touch."

Colette returned the smile, reluctantly, and turned towards the door. Sirius avoided looking in his old professor's direction as she led Colette Battancourt out into the hall.

Twenty excruciating minutes passed before McGonagall returned—this time, alone.

"Well?" Sirius stood up. "How did it come off?"

Minerva shut the door behind her and walked over to him.

"Horace Slughorn missed his calling on the stage," she remarked, wearily. "I'm starting to think he's acting far more credulous than he is _all_ the time, in fact."

Sirius snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"He _is_ head of Slytherin." A look of understanding passed between them. "They bought it, then."

"As far as I could tell. I'm sure you'd be able to judge far better than I."

Sirius collapsed back into his chair. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a sigh—of relief and frustration both.

"Then…I guess I'm in both your _debts,_ now."

McGonagall circled her desk and sat behind it, a rare smile of amusement gracing her normally stern features.

"Horace is far more likely to prevail upon you to repay him, of course."

There followed a short, awkward silence.

"—Look, I know what you're going to say, and—"

"Are you in some sort of trouble, Black?"

Sirius flushed and fell silent. It was not at all what he had 'known' she would say—not what he expected from her, and the low tone of concern, laced with a surprising gentleness, disarmed him.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"Call it a _hunch_." McGonagall removed her spectacles and polished them with a small cloth from her desk. "Three years ago you impressed upon me in the most _strident_ terms your determination to have _nothing_ to do with your family ever again."

Sirius stuck his elbow on the edge of her desk and rested his chin impudently upon it. Hunch his arse. She put her glasses back on, and through them, studied her old pupil carefully.

"Have you spoken to Dumbledore?"

"About you? No." The eyes behind her spectacles flashed with irritation. "I can only _imagine_ what the nature of your meeting today was—he was opaque on the subject when I inquired. But it is not my place to pry into the private affairs of the headmaster, in any case."

"Just to be a bit nosy about _mine_."

She coughed and pressed him, through gritted teeth, to have a biscuit. As it didn't seem like she would give him the cloak back until he played her game, Sirius took one. They were ginger-snaps, and, though not his favorite, he did enjoy the peppery sweetness of the treat—he even allowed her to push a cup of tea towards him as well, from the silver service she had set out for herself, before the sound of Colette's destruction had dislodged her from her sanctuary.

"To answer your first question—" He nibbled the corner of the biscuit. "No more than the usual amount."

"In other words, a great deal."

"Look, what's this about?" He pushed his cup away. "Why're you taking such an interest? You never have before."

She hesitated.

"I—happened to run into your _father_ the day before yesterday."

Sirius sighed and dropped the biscuit into his tea. Of course. Of _course_ she had.

"Oh. Well. I'm so sorry for your misfortune."

"You're a bit old for sarcasm, Sirius." She shook her head. "And this is no laughing matter."

She had never called him by his Christian name in all the years she'd known him—and it did the trick of lowering the wall he'd raised to defend himself from her line of questions.

"What did he say to you?"

" _Enough_ that I was left concerned for your welfare." He mumbled a few choice curses under his breath. "Believe it or not, Black, I want to help you—and I may even be in a position to do so."

"And what do you think you can do for me, exactly?"

She lost her patience.

"If you have dabbled in illegal transfiguration during your time living in this castle—" Her eyes narrowed. "—As your former professor and head of house, a great deal, I should think."

He sat up straight, suddenly alert again. Sirius didn't have time to marvel at her knowing as much as that—and what could have gotten into Orion's head, to play such a dangerous game with her—

But no. McGonagall couldn't know the truth of what they'd done—she would have confronted him already, if she did. And he could not imagine Orion giving away his trump card so recklessly.

 _Dad's not me._

So he must've hinted at _just_ enough to get her going in the right direction. Great. Sirius rubbed his temples, already feeling the headache setting in. As if life was complicated enough as it was.

"I know you _think_ you can help, but—trust me—if _you_ get involved, it will only—"

"—Only what?"

"Make things more—muddled. Worse."

"How so?"

He practically growled in frustration as he stood up.

"Because if you knew the truth you'd…be _angry_ with me, and I'd just as soon there was _one_ person in my life whose opinion mattered to me that wasn't disappointed or pissed off."

This impassioned—if crude—speech, while not outwardly moving Professor McGonagall, at least did not cause her to lose her temper with him, as such outbursts had in years gone by.

She lowered her own cup to her saucer and placed it back down on the desk.

"You are one of the most gifted students I have ever had, Black—but you never allow anyone to help you. Why is that?"

He laughed, bitterly.

"I've realized if you don't get your hopes up, you won't be disappointed."

A noise came out of her he didn't recognize for a moment—until he realized it was a laugh. A sad laugh, one of pity.

"You also don't make things easy for yourself." She stood up again—fixing him with a shrewd look. "This reluctance to confide your troubles wouldn't have anything to do with three _co-_ conspirators, would it?"

A slow grin came over his face.

"I don't know to whom you're referring."

She held the invisibility cloak up, as if this was all the proof she needed of wrongdoing.

"I will eventually need that back," Sirius said, in a subdued voice. "But if you're planning on holding it hostage until I 'sing like a canary', I'll leave it here and come back later, when I find you in a more equitable mood."

He made a movement towards the door, and, to Sirius's surprise, McGonagall—wearing the look of severe disapproval she was known to grace when in his company—pulled the cloak out from under her arm and stretched out the hand holding it towards him.

"This _does_ explain a few things." Her eyes flashed behind her spectacles. "Please return it to James, with my…regards."

"I'll pass them on if I see him. We're not really—speaking, at the moment."

She raised both eyebrows and somehow seemed to say more with that than any lecture could have.

Sirius paused at the door.

"Look, I'll—I'll think about your offer, alright?"

She nodded, and he hesitated again.

"Was there something else, Black?"

He smothered the grin he was sure she would tell him was self-satisfied.

"Sorry, it's just—I thought you might ask about— _you_ know."

Professor McGonagall gave her old pupil a withering look.

"Your personal affairs, are, happily—none of mine." Sirius snorted, and, since she realized he was fishing for it, she decided to take the bait.

"But if it matters to you…I thought she seemed a very nice, sensible and intelligent sort of girl."

"Once you got past the part where she pretended not to understand English, to cover up that she'd sneaked in with me."

Her nostrils flared, but not without humor.

"She even managed to keep the secret of how the two of you got in the grounds." McGonagall smiled and turned back to her now tepid cup of tea. "You have a profound influence, clearly."

He laughed, uneasily, at the thought. That was the last thing Colette needed, him rubbing off on her.

"Let's hope not, for her sake."

"Have a good Christmas, Black. I hope to see more of you in the new year, when you've…had a little time to think the matter over."

Sirius saluted her and walked out the door.

He quickly tucked the Potter family heirloom into his bag, a new spring in his step. By all rights he should have put it back on immediately—but the one-eyed witch was an easy enough statue to get to from McGonagall's office, and he was not one to linger and press his luck.

"Sirius, my boy—what _luck_ catching you."

He froze. Of course, it didn't help if other people had all the luck to begin with.

Sirius's instant reaction to Professor Slughorn appearing (had he been waiting outside of McGonagall's office?) was an exaggerated head movement from side-to-side, to see if there was any pillars to hide behind.

Slughorn chuckled knowingly.

"Nothing to worry about, my boy. It's safe. They left by Floo from my office just a few minutes ago—" He nudged Sirius. "And your _mother_ nary the wiser about young Colette's activities this afternoon with a certain young gentleman."

Inwardly Sirius grimaced, but he put on a brave and what he hoped seemed an appropriately ingratiating expression, nodded, and assured his old teacher of his gratitude in aiding in this harmless little deception.

"You have Minerva to thank as much as me, my boy. Never thought she had it in her—a soft heart, after all."

He tried to hide his eye-roll. Sirius supposed Slughorn thinking it was all some clandestine romance being stymied by a pureblood matron's draconian rules was a small price to pay for keeping Narcissa from learning what her new friend was _really_ up to.

These close shaves of his were inching their way towards his throat by the day.

 _Maybe Remus is right about me and risks._ When someone else might get hurt, they seemed—far less worth it.

"I owe you both, I guess," he said, in an echo of his words to her. "A great deal."

"Think nothing of it, my boy." Slughorn clapped him on the shoulder. "In my heart I _am_ romantic."

 _And you'll waste no time trying to get something out of this, will you?_

Slughorn wrapped one meaty hand around Sirius's shoulder and began steering him up the stairs.

"You know, Sirius—I _had_ been thinking of you just the other day. I happened to see your father, and he put you in mind—spitting image of him at that age! But you _are_ an elusive young man." Under the joviality, his eyes shone with shrewd cunning. "I never hear from you! And such a bright, talented boy—from a family for whom I've always had such a soft spot—" _Oh yes, here he goes._ "—Well, whatever you're up to, seems a criminal waste of your talents. I only want to help you."

Sirius stopped dead.

Slughorn shuffled a few steps ahead before he realized that his companion had not remained in step with him.

Sirius looked up, face as alert as a gundog's. A thought—a crazy, wonderful, very simple, neat and tidy thought—had overtaken him.

"You know, professor, actually—" He felt his heartbeat accelerate, and then that odd calm that comes over one when a decision has been made. "There _is_ something I really could use your help with."

Slughorn's mouth opened, slightly—Sirius had always held him at arm's length, and he was quite in the habit of referring to the young Black heir as 'the one who got away', something Sirius had been told, to his immense amusement, by Lily.

No doubt he thought he'd swallowed _Felix Felicis_ by mistake.

"Oh? What is this about?"

To be twice in debt to Horace Slughorn in the same day was to court disaster, but Sirius found he didn't care much. What did he have to lose, at this point?

If she was on the scent already, he might not have the luxury of time, anyway.

"Do you have some time now to discuss it? It's a bit—sensitive—perhaps we can talk it over a drink?"

 _At least,_ he thought, as they trundled off in the direction of the study so recently vacated by his mother, _Slughorn was not likely to shout at him._

And this would take care of more than one problem hanging over him.

* * *

Narcissa had long-since trained herself not to wrinkle her nose—a most ungraceful, unladylike habit from the schoolroom!—but halfway through this dinner she was quite tempted to grimace with frustration, to stick her tongue out in dismay.

Her friend was not performing as she should be.

The charming and vivacious girl of lunchtime was gone, replaced by this pale stranger sitting across the table. Mrs. Malfoy would have chocked it up to Colette's natural shyness and modesty, except the way her friend stared pensively into her plate of beef _bourguignon_ was moody and taciturn, more lost in thought than silently attentive.

Of course, Narcissa thought, as she frowned and cut a carrot, daintily—considering _this_ was the only dinner they would have, just the four of them, and probably her great chance to make an impression on her prospective father-in-law, Colette was making no effort to show off her many natural charms.

Oh well—Cissy to the rescue. She would set all that to rights.

"You haven't yet asked Colette about _her_ day, Uncle."

Orion carefully patted his mouth with the serviette and lowered his fork to his plate.

"I wasn't aware Miss Battancourt's day was any different from yours."

"Well, that's because you didn't _ask_." Narcissa smiled across the table at her friend. "She had quite the adventure."

Colette snapped out of her daydream and looked up, her eyes darting to her host.

"Oh?" Narcissa's uncle addressed her directly. " _Did_ you now, girl? Pray tell."

Though Mrs. Malfoy thought Colette's modesty was one of her most becoming features, the French witch's eyes were so pretty that Narcissa wished she'd turn them up from the tablecloth, for pity's sake!

What did she have to be embarrassed about?

"There was…no adventure."

"She was separated from us for a while," Narcissa pressed. "And had to find her way to the castle on her own. I'd say that counts."

Mr. Black's eyes flitted to his wife—who at that moment decided to insert herself into the exchange.

"Miss Battancourt had a _turn_ —" Walburga informed him. "A dizzy spell in the restaurant at lunch, and so we left her behind to rest, while we went up to the castle."

"You left her in an inn— _without_ a chaperone?"

Narcissa was surprised to hear the obvious irritation in her uncle's voice. She couldn't hazard a guess as to the cause—Orion had never been one to take an interest in matters of feminine protocol before now.

"She was perfectly well looked after—" Walburga fluttered. "By the _proprietress_."

"How ill were you?" Orion demanded, turning back to Colette. "Did you have to lie down?"

"For—a little while."

He scraped up the rest of his beef with unnecessary force. The three women watched him chew the last of his meal and swallow with an aggressiveness that bespoke irritation.

Narcissa's aunt must've known the cause of his mood—though she remained impassive, staring down her husband with a knowing patience.

Women had to develop these stratagems, Cissy thought, for men could be so strange, sometimes!

"How _extraordinary_ that you should feel as ill as all that, and my wife did not immediately floo you back to Grimmauld Place," Mr. Black remarked, his voice dripping with irony—though it was clearly all directed towards Walburga, who had chosen that moment to become very interested with smoothing the uncreased tablecloth.

"I'm sure she had her _reasons_ , of course."

Walburga cut her potato into fours and neatly popped them in her mouth, one-by-one, before answering him.

"It was just a minor dizzy spell. The innkeeper was obliging enough—and the girl recovered herself, as you can see, and rejoined us shortly."

" _How_ shortly?"

"Oh—we were having such a _fascinating_ conversation with Professor Slughorn, I really couldn't tell you. I can't keep track of the time in such moments." She shrugged, airily, as if it was of no consequence—utterly immune to the canny look her husband was shooting her across a tureen of peas. "Soon enough."

It had been at least two hours, by Cissy's estimation, but this seemed a poor time to point it out.

" _Anyway_. A member of staff saw her in the Three Broomsticks, recovered, and took the liberty of walking her up to the castle."

"Who was it?"

A distinct chilliness came over Narcissa's favorite aunt.

"The—transfiguration professor," Walburga answered, stiffly.

There was a telling pause, just then. Orion gave his niece's friend an unfathomable look.

"Oh. Well—in _that_ case, it was all perfectly respectable, as my wife has said." He surveyed Colette with mild curiosity. "Though—hardly what I would describe as an 'adventure.' Unless Miss Battancourt has a very different definition of the word."

There was some humor lingering behind this, of the dry sort her uncle sometimes carelessly employed, almost as an afterthought to himself. Colette watched him closely, and, Narcissa was pleased to note, did not seem put-off by her host's mercurial style of conversation.

"I trust she didn't allow you to _wander_."

Colette merely nodded—for once unblushing.

Narcissa sniffed.

"I was telling Colette while we were dressing for dinner not to judge us too harshly on _her_ account."

"Minerva McGonagall is—" Mr. Black hesitated. "—Well-respected enough. Some even consider her one of the great witches of her day."

" _I_ don't think her so great."

Narcissa bore no love for her former professor or the subject of transfiguration, and did not bother hiding the fact. It was a well-known that Minerva McGonagall was not _their_ sort of witch, and she had spent at least ten minutes when they were fixing their hair before they came down abusing her to Colette.

She would never forget being told that if she spent less time looking at herself in the glass and more time practicing her wand movements, not only would her marks improve—so would her vanity.

"Celia Fawcett told me her father was a Presbyterian Minister, of all things." Narcissa laughed. "Can you _imagine_?"

Aunt Walburga didn't hide her contempt, but would not grace the mere subject of Professor McGonagall with anything more than a sniff and remark to the effect that this vulgar fact was very unsurprising.

"I liked her."

The other three all turned their heads to stare at Colette in unison.

Aunt Walburga grew very still, the way she always did when she was suppressing her anger at something. Cissy tried to signal with a shake of her head that this was not the path her friend should tread—but it was too late.

"Did you?" Orion asked—both genuinely surprised and interested. "What for?"

Colette fiddled with her fork, visibly uncomfortably at the prospect of having to defend her opinion, but her voice remained steady.

"She—seemed a very serious sort of person, who is very competent in her subject, and admired for it by her pupils."

"Well put," he said, taking a sip from his wine. "What an interesting talk you must have had with— _Professor McGonagall_ , as you were winding your way to the castle, to have picked up on all that. She _did_ talk herself up."

At this Colette did color a little.

"I suppose you… _you_ know her, Monsieur Black."

Narcissa pinched her under the table. Colette winced but kept her eyes on her host—her expression intent.

Orion considered his answer for a moment.

"A little."

"She is a—a head of house, like Professor Slughorn, is she not?"

Narcissa's fingers froze on the stem of her water goblet.

 _How_ could she have not thought to warn Colette what a bad idea this turn in conversation was—that she had gone from a worn path right into the lion's den, but then her uncle merely nodded and confirmed that yes, this was the case, she was a head of house, just as Slughorn was.

"No doubt _he_ provided you with ample contrast to the _seriousness_ in her you apparently admire so."

He smiled, thinly.

"They seem very different."

"Like chalk and cheese."

Colette grabbed the stem of her wine glass, as if to steady her nerves.

"She—she is a little harder on her students than he is, I think." She tapped the side of the crystal, then looked up again. "Stricter."

"I have no doubt that is the case." He lay his fork neatly on the edge of the china plate. "Though whether it is by temperament or necessity is _less_ certain."

His voice grew cold cold—but Colette wouldn't be deterred.

"Perhaps…some pupils are better suited to strictness than indulgence."

"No doubt." Orion swirled his glass of wine. "And _some_ are hopeless causes altogether."

The girl's face fell.

"I don't believe _anyone_ a hopeless cause, sir," she said, gently. "It is never too late to reform."

"You think so?" He took a sip of the wine. "My father says the character is fixed at the age of twelve and never changes after."

He paused, as if _daring_ her to contradict his redoubtable father. The girl didn't cower at the look, though, or tremble, as Narcissa might've expected her to—in fact, there was a trace of melancholy on her delicate features that made her seem older than she was.

"What would you say to that, Miss Battancourt?"

"It would be easier for _you_ to change than your father—" Colette said, in a very quiet voice. "And easier still if he gave you a _reason_ to."

Her uncle's expression at this extraordinary impertinence was unfathomable—he looked at Colette silently for a long while, so long that Cissy thought he might explode in anger—but then, abruptly, he changed the subject to the girls' plans for the next evening.

The subject of Minerva McGonagall did not come up again.

It weighed on her, though, and so Narcissa brought the matter up with her friend later, when they were preparing for bed.

"You were acting so _odd_ at dinner—very forward—unlike yourself."

Colette fiddled with the frayed edge of her nightgown.

"Your uncle didn't mind," she said, looking up into the mirror. Narcissa shot her a reproachful look as she patted on her eye-cream.

"Didn't I tell you to keep quiet and demure?"

"You said I must come out of my shell," Colette pointed out. "Stand out more."

Narcissa turned in her seat—a Pygmalion who had lost control of her pupil, if she was already talking back like _this_ so soon after she'd taken the poor witch under her wing.

"With Rabastan and all the rest of our friends." She waved her wand, and her blond hair twisted up into an elegant knot at the base of her head. "Not with my uncle. He doesn't like women who speak their minds or—give opinions."

"Doesn't he?" Colette mumbled, twisting her braid around her finger. "He married your aunt."

Narcissa flushed.

" _Insolence_ is unbecoming in a witch, Colette," she said, coldly. "And—and _anyway_ , that's completely different. Aunt Walburga is an established woman of high-standing, whom I'm sure wasn't at all _like_ that when she was our age."

"If you say so," the French girl sighed.

Narcissa wasn't sure she liked this new side of her friend that had come out, and so she decided not to confide—for now—her instinct that, in spite of all his misgivings, her uncle _had_ , in his own way, been taken with Colette at dinner. She had provided him with an object of interest outside his head, which was a rare feat indeed.

But better the girl not get _too_ proud and haughty, and think she could manage the task of putting her best foot forward with Narcissa's family all on her own.

She looked so troubled, though—and as Narcissa was not cruel by nature, she did not want to send her to bed looking so.

"When you're married to my cousin and mistress of this house, you can offer all the opinions you want."

Mrs. Malfoy couldn't help but be a tad gratified by the modest blush her remark elicited. Whatever gains in confidence her French friend's visit to Britain had brought, at least _some_ traces of the uncertain, naive witch that Cissy had first taken such a liking to remained.

She wanted to style Colette in her image, after all—but her aim was in molding the perfect companion, not in setting up a rival to herself.

It wouldn't do at all for the girl to get ideas above her station—and forget _who_ it was that had taken her under her wing in the first place.

* * *

Peter didn't _like_ Malfoy.

He found _liking_ had little to do with the line of work he'd found himself in, in any case—but Malfoy was by far the easiest of his _contacts_ to deal with. One knew where one stood with Lucius, more or less. He might've been dangerous, but it was the predictable sort of danger—like the rise and fall of a heavy piece of machinery—you always knew when to take your chances with him. He remembered him at school, from the few years their time had overlapped. Even at sixteen he'd been an imposing, sly figure, forever looking down his nose and every first year and non-Slytherin he believed "beneath himself."

Back then, Peter believed himself one of them, and he'd been terrified of him.

That was before Malfoy was coming to _him_ for information.

"You lied to me."

Peter looked up from his untouched pint and squinted across the dimly-lit table that separated them. The bar was empty, or nearly so. He had been surprised when Lucius asked to meet him here. Pettigrew wouldn't have expected Malfoy to dignify as ordinary a pub as the Market Arms—until he realized that the idea of being seen with Peter in any place where he might be recognized by someone he _knew_ was far more abhorrent to Malfoy than their rustic surroundings.

"I—I don't know what you mean."

"That little _tip-off_ you gave me the other night," Lucius drawled, softly. "You said you got it from a contact at the Ministry."

Peter sucked in a breath and went very still—a trick he'd learned from years of trailing after James and Sirius. Next to them, he was small and went unnoticed, so long as he didn't move.

Unfortunately, he wasn't next to them, anymore.

"I _did_ —"

"—You got it from your _friend_ ," Malfoy interrupted, coolly. "The second man—the one who came with Longbottom."

Peter bit his lip, his eyes darted involuntarily towards the door—a reflexive motion. The first thing he looked for upon entering any room was an escape route.

"The one you _claimed_ not to know the identity of."

In spite of his great fear of Malfoy—for he _was_ still afraid of him, as he had been as an eleven-year-old Gryffindor—Peter felt a stirring of indignance at this.

"You wouldn't have known they were coming _at all_ if I—if I hadn't told you—"

"— _Half_ of what you knew." Lucius's lip curled. "I wonder…if you haven't yet decided where your loyalties lie, Pettigrew."

The effect of Malfoy's cold eyes narrowed in his direction was immediate—Peter shrank back in his chair.

His mind raced—once he knew they'd both gotten away, Peter had not dreamed Lucius would discover what he'd deliberately concealed. Malfoy thought it had been out of a lingering sense of loyalty to Sirius that he had kept his friend's involvement in the mission that night to himself—well, perhaps that lingering sentiment had played some small role, but it had certainly not been a conscious one.

He was no fool. Moody and Dumbledore would start to realize information from the Order was leaking, and if he didn't play his cards right, this new arrangement would come to an ignominious end.

The Dark Lord didn't offer second chances.

"I—I couldn't give you _everything_ ," he hissed, in an undertone. "They—they would have traced it back to me."

Malfoy leaned back in his chair and considered his companion.

"I wonder if you would speak in this manner if _he_ was before you."

Peter trembled at the idea of it.

"He—he knows I have a position to protect. I have valuable—"

"An informant with Ministry contacts has _value._ " Malfoy paused. "A well-informed lackey who stumbles upon interesting scraps thrown to him by unthinking dullards—less so."

Lucius's look turned sly.

"One wonders—what it is you're truly protecting."

Peter's fingers, sweaty from nerves, slipped on the tankard he tried to grasp.

"Of course…your information may still be of use to _me_."

"What—" Peter wheezed, breathlessly. "What do you want to know?'

"Who sent them." Malfoy turned a coin over between his fingers. "How they knew to come."

Peter bit his thumb—was Malfoy accusing _him_ of double-dealing? No, that couldn't be…Lucius never told him anything beyond what was strictly necessary.

It was a decidedly one-way relationship, hitherto a cause of no small resentment—but now, very useful for preserving his position.

He could not be guilty of leaking what he didn't know in the first place.

"Is the Ministry watching me, Pettigrew?"

"The plan—it was Dumbledore's plan. The information, it—it came from Dumbledore."

All it had taken was that one casual remark from Sirius about how the Hog's Head would be freezing this time of year—and he had known to follow him, had seen Albus Dumbledore meet Frank and Sirius, had even managed to hear enough of the conversation to glean where they were going in time to get the information back to Malfoy.

Easy to blend in. The Hog's Head was, after all, known for its extraordinary rodent problem.

Lucius looked displeased—but unsurprised—at this news.

"Who told Dumbledore?"

"He has _ways_ of knowing things," Peter said—something he knew to be true, but also thought it extremely prudent to point out now, when his own trustworthiness was under scrutiny. "He finds them out."

"From individuals he trusts."

Lucius pondered this problem for a long while. Peter watched him with trepidation. He may have found Malfoy easier to deal with than the alternative, but he was still fundamentally dangerous.

"Your friend is almost as good at getting out of tight corners as you are, Pettigrew," Malfoy remarked, breaking the silence. "He escaped my house undetected that night. No one saw him leave—he vanished without a trace."

It obviously pained Malfoy to admit this fact. Lucius seemed far more surprised at it than Peter was.

"He's had a lot of practice getting away," Peter remarked, honestly. "At school and—and he used to sneak in and out of his parents' house in London over the hols."

A shadow crossed over Malfoy's face at this innocuous remark.

"Or at least—" Peter slumped in his seat. "He used to brag he did."

Malfoy gave him a hard look.

"Do you know how he got out that night?"

Knowing Sirius, there were any number of possibilities. He was clever and—unlike Malfoy— _always_ unpredictable. Sirius could improvise.

He was the friend Peter feared most—he always had.

"No," he answered, honestly.

Malfoy didn't need to know that he was being shut out from whatever was going on with James and Remus and Sirius—and he was the last one who would volunteer it.

"I believe he may have had help escaping."

Peter laughed, nervously.

"W-who would have helped him?"

"Oh…someone from his family, I expect," Lucius remarked, casually. "They were all there. It was a celebration of his grandfather's birthday."

Peter tried not to let his surprise show as Malfoy explained that his wife had had her extended family over for a visit that night—including Sirius's parents. When Lucius asked him how likely his father or mother smuggling Sirius out of the house was, he actually laughed.

"He hasn't seen them in years—and anyway, they cast him off when he ran away."

"Are you _so_ sure?"

Pettigrew frowned and chewed his lip—what was Malfoy driving at? Did he know something Peter didn't? Sirius _hated_ his family, never even mentioned them, if he could help it. As far as he was concerned, Lily and James and Remus—and perhaps, on good days, even Peter— _they_ were Sirius's family.

But if he'd seen them all again, even while he was in disguise—was that the cause of Sirius's strange behavior, these past few days?

No—it had started well before the night of the party at Malfoy Manor.

"Well, the only one I can think of is—his—his brother might've helped him get out."

Malfoy's eyes flickered with surprise.

"Why would you say that?"

"Sirius always used to say his brother would cover for him, just to keep their mother from getting upset." Peter chewed his thumbnail. "If he _had_ been caught and exposed, with all his family there, well—it would have caused quite a scene, wouldn't it've?"

"It certainly would have."

"I could s-see Regulus doing it, just to spare them—grudgingly."

Malfoy weighed this new angle carefully.

"It couldn't have been him. Regulus was the only Black _not_ present." Malfoy didn't provide an explanation for this absence, and Peter didn't have the nerve to ask. "Find out how your friend did it, Pettigrew—help or no."

"Or—what?"

"Or, upon his return, I'll tell the Dark Lord of your unfortunate—lapse." Malfoy smiled, grimly. "You wouldn't want him thinking you do this sort of thing all the time, would you?"

Peter swallowed the rest of the tankard—hardly able to taste his ale. He sputtered out a reply—something about finding out before Christmas. He might've preferred Malfoy to the alternative, but that didn't mean he was the sort of man Peter was willing to risk crossing.

Anyway—he was as curious to know the answer to that question as Lucius was.

And he couldn't help thinking that Regulus Black's absence from these events was beginning to weigh on Malfoy just as heavily as Sirius's presence was.

That would be worth looking into, as well.

* * *

"How was your day?"

Walburga looked up from her dressing table and into the mirror. Her husband stood at the threshold, half in shadows—a ghostly figure, visible in the glass's reflection. He was so quiet by nature, she wondered how long he'd been standing there, watching her as she brushed her hair.

"I believe you already asked me that question at _dinner._ "

The ghost emerged from the shadows and shut the door behind him.

" _That_ was in mixed company."

Walburga dragged the brush through her long, dark hair—now streaked with a grey that could no longer be concealed by the dim light of the lamps—steady, firm strokes—until she felt a gentle grasp on her wrist, and the object pulled from her hand.

She looked up in the mirror again, to find his handsome, drawn face now hovering above her own.

Orion pulled the bristles through her hair with more care than she herself used—then began the act of braiding it for her. It was something he had done in the early days of their marriage—when things had been hopeful, before accumulated troubles had weighed down on them, and made husband and wife into familiar strangers.

Orion never pulled at the scalp, as Irma had done when she was a little girl and everyone still called her 'Burgie'. He left her hair loose and comfortable, but still without a strand out of place.

"Did you go check in on the boys this afternoon, like I asked you to?"

He told her that he had, but that he'd only spoken to the younger, for Sirius had been cloistered in his bedroom when he arrived.

"Sleeping or sulking?"

"The former. I checked." Orion set the brush down on her dresser. "From what I gather, he had a rather busy morning and afternoon, so it only makes sense he would need his rest."

"Of course." She carelessly applied scent to her wrists. "You know how _peevish_ he gets when he doesn't have his afternoon lie-down."

Her husband waited to see if she would volunteer anything beyond this observation about their son's general moodiness. But Walburga was more interested in the pots of cream and depositing her jewelry in the various silver boxes she employed for the purpose.

He cleared his throat.

"Apparently he's discovered a foolproof way of getting out from under my thumb."

Mrs. Black snapped her mirrored jewelry box shut and turned around in her chair.

"How do you know that?"

"He boasted about it to his brother when he got home–in rather explicit detail."

She sighed, and the pair shared a look of amused exasperation at their elder son's inability to keep his mouth shut.

"And Regulus turned around and reported this to you directly?" Walburga asked him, torn between pleased and disapproving. She did not like her children tale-telling as a matter of principle, not even when the information benefitted her. "Typical."

Orion's grim smile had a note of irony in it.

" _He_ has his own reasons for wanting to get back in my good books."

He sat down at the foot of her four-poster.

"I take it that whatever he _thinks_ he's doing—" Her eyes narrowed. "It's not anything you're worried about."

Orion laughed.

And nothing _she_ had to worry about, that was the unspoken part. He gave her a _'what-do-you-take-me-for?'_ look.

"I am the _least_ of what that boy has to contend with, madam."

His eyes lingered on the two letters sitting innocently upon her bureau.

One had been opened, the other remained sealed. Walburga picked up the open letter and carelessly flipped the pages, pretending to idly peruse it.

She had read it a half hour earlier, when the owl had brought it to her window, but she didn't want him to know she'd had time to stew on its contents.

"It was awfully high-handed of you, ordering Lucretia not to come to dinner." His hand, which had been rubbing out a scratch on her bedpost, stilled. "I had already set a place for her and had the elf prepare food for five."

Orion stood up and walked back over to her. He rested his hand on her bare shoulder, caressing it with his thumb.

"You know I can't 'order' my sister to do _anything_ she hasn't already set her mind on."

She chewed her lip, which was pushed out in what looked suspiciously like a pout. Orion, still holding her shoulder, lowered himself down next to her in the love seat.

"I merely suggested to Lucretia it might be better she stay home. And she agreed."

"Well, you might have consulted me, first," Walburga said, irritably. "I had things I wished to discuss with her."

He undid the delicate clasp of her diamond necklace—the one he had given her when Regulus was born—and hung it up next to mirror.

"Am I not a suitable co-conspirator for this scheme of yours?"

Walburga flushed pink and stammered out a few tart words about how she hadn't thought he wanted to be bothered by the business, and that she wouldn't stand him laughing at her. He lifted her hand, kissed it and promised, with a tenderness he had not shown her in many years, that he would not _only_ voice his disapproval and laugh at her.

"What kind of promise is that?" Walburga demanded, crossly—but without heat.

He smiled, wryly.

"The best I can give you, at present."

She handed him the second envelope, unopened—Orion recognized the bold and insolent hand, and they both knew that all the answers he sought could be found within.

He read it in silence for a few minutes. When Orion looked up, he found Walburga watching him on tenterhooks—eager for his approval and his guidance.

"It would appear your plans are progressing even better than you hoped." He handed it back to her. "He had a 'cracking good time' and wants to see her tomorrow."

She nodded, slowly.

"I guessed as much."

Then why, Orion wondered, folding the letter carefully back up—she would peruse it at her own leisure, he was sure, re-se—why did she look so pensive?

"Are you having second thoughts about all this?"

She flushed and turned her head away, annoyed at the treacherous betrayal of her own face—by nature so expressive, which she had spent years learning to master, to control, to conceal, as was expected by right of her rank and station.

He'd never told her how much he had always loved that part of her.

"What happened?"

"There was one moment—that Kreacher had to…interfere."

She told him, in halting tones, of what she had witnessed from the top of the Owlry, from where she had been observing the young lovers, unbeknownst to them, or even the elf she had ordered to follow.

Orion didn't bother to ask what excuse she had made to separate herself from Narcissa and Slughorn for those few minutes she had known their son would be in plain sight.

"At least that dratted house-elf is good for _something_."

"I'm sure if _he_ hadn't found a way of stopping it, _you_ would have." He narrowed his eyes. "You're troubled. Why?"

"It's just—he looked…" She twisted her hands in her lap. "So—unlike himself."

"In what way?"

Her breath caught in her throat.

"He was _carefree_ —just like when he was a boy." She grew misty-eyed. "Sirius was always so—so playful and high-spirited."

"When he was _a boy_ you were forever scolding him to sit still and behave himself."

She rounded on him, furious.

"Perhaps I didn't know what I'd be _missing,_ back then!"

This admission of weakness was so rare for her that it merited hushed silence after.

"You could try—being _sweeter_ to him."

Walburga huffed in irritation and twisted in her seat. When she turned to look her husband directly in the face, she found, to her annoyance, that he looked positively amused.

"He never trusts me when I do!" Walburga exclaimed, irritated. "He always accuses me of _plotting_ against him."

Orion brushed a stray curl from her shoulder.

"Well—to be _fair_ to the boy…"

" _That_ is not plotting!" She gripped the edge of her ivory-handled brush so tightly her fingers went white. "That's—for his own _good_."

"As long as it's for _your_ good, as well." Her husband smiled, and for the second time that evening, removed the hairbrush from her hand. "A gentle touch wouldn't go amiss, in this case."

Her face fell.

"Gentleness…doesn't come _naturally_ to me."

It took every ounce of her strength for Walburga to admit this to him, this sense of her own deficiency as a mother, but once it was out—she felt the odd weight of it lessen, somehow, and with each second that passed where he did not laugh, she felt the burden less, too.

His expression was solemn—grave.

"You _won't_ lose him again, Walburga," Orion said, quietly. "I promise you."

Orion rose from his seat and kissed her, gently, on the forehead.

When she watched him leave that night for his dressing room, as ghostly as he had come, it was with regret.

She had always slept better with him at her side.

* * *

 **I was having a real mental block about editing this chapter (and a lot of things have been going on in my life that have precipitated some stepping back from the story) but I hope you all enjoyed it. As always feedback much appreciated.**


	23. Chapter 23

_"_ _You and Tonks are related?" Harry asked, surprised._

 _"_ _Oh yeah, her mother, Andromeda, was my favorite cousin," said Sirius, examining the tapestry closely. "No, Andromeda's not on here either, look—"_

 _He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and Narcissa._

 _"_ _Andromeda's sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages, but Andromeda married a Muggle-born, Ted Tonks, so—"_

 _Sirius mimed blasting the tapestry with a wand and laughed, sourly._

 ** _-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 23**

* * *

 ** _December 23, 1979_**

"You don't usually come by this early."

Mrs. Black paid this paltry greeting no mind as she bustled into her son's flat, her arms laden with the usual basket of sundries for her children and a watered green silk gown peaking out from under her fox-fur. Her younger son, sequestered in his usual spot on the sofa, murmured a polite 'good morning' before crumpling up the parchment he'd been writing on into a ball and shoving it unceremoniously in his pajama pocket.

Walburga chose not to remark on this strange, furtive behavior, instead turning in the direction of her elder son, eager to see what mischief _he_ was up to this morning.

Sirius sat—or rather, slouched—at the dining room table, eating some kind of porridge-like substance and bacon for his breakfast. Her firstborn had obviously tried and failed to cook both properly himself, for a distinctly acrid burnt smell lingered in the air. He was dressed, she noted, with a sniff, in a high-necked black jumper and dark denim trousers—a far cry from the sensible robes she had cleaned and hung in his closet just two days earlier. This outfit was at _least_ made of higher quality material than his usual distasteful muggle garments—he could _almost_ have passed as a wizard in polite society, if not for the brass-buckled leather boots with which he was currently scuffing the sitting room floor.

Sirius set his spoon down and gave her one of his familiar challenging looks, as if daring his mother to remark upon his appearance. Walburga let her eyes drink in the sight of him and passed over this open defiance, instead.

She would not be drawn into a argument with him this morning.

" _You_ are not usually up and dressed this early, Sirius Orion," she said, smoothly, as she hung up her fur on the peg by the door. "So I hardly think you're in a position to make that assessment."

"Yeah, well, I get my intelligence from Regulus."

Regulus, who was still wearing his emerald dressing gown and sporting the unkempt hair of the sleep-bound, scowled and buried his head deeper in his book.

Walburga set the basket of goodies on the table—from it wafted pleasing aromas which Sirius studiously ignored in favor of shoveling down some more of the vile gruel in front of him.

"I hope you both enjoyed your evening entirely free of our company," she continued, careful to keep her voice devoid of anything but the usual level of sarcasm. A stack of plates which her sons had not bothered to spell clean sat in a pile at the end of the table, living proof that they had, at least, eaten the meal she prepared and sent over for them the night before.

If they had not she would have had words with them both.

Sirius shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

"It was…uneventful." His boot tip—brass, to match the unfortunate buckles—tapped against the leg of her table in a staccato rhythm clearly meant to annoy. "A quiet night in, right, Reg?"

Regulus mumbled a vague ascent to this, not bothering to look up from his book. Sirius's bright eyes swiveled back around from brother to Walburga, though she pretended not to notice as she cleaned and polished the aforementioned pile of dirty plates and silver with a mere flick of her wand.

"How was your yesterday?" Sirius asked, casually. "I was, erm—surprised you never came 'round."

She smiled and tucked a loose curl behind one ear.

"We had a pleasant—but very _busy_ day, and I simply didn't have the time to drop by." She tilted her head coquettishly. "I'm sorry if you missed me."

Sirius arched an eyebrow but resisted comment.

Walburga turned her head over her shoulder, in the direction of the sofa.

"Professor Slughorn sends his regards. He is _very_ much looking forward to hearing from you, Regulus."

"What, didn't he mention me?"

She turned back to Sirius—trying and failing to look innocent.

How _canine_ he could be, she thought, grimly amused. Had he always had that puppyish quality, or had that come on after he had learned to transform?

"The subject didn't come up."

"What about your—erm, dinner?" He sat up, letting the legs of the chair drop to the ground. "How was that?"

She chose her next words with extreme care.

"Quiet, as I'm sure yours was." She tapped the last of the dishes, vanishing all traces of the previous night's supper. "I'm not entirely sure your father approves of Narcissa's friend, but she'll be gone soon enough, so I suppose he will have to bear with her impertinent opinions for only a short time."

Sirius pursed his lips but remained silent. How unusual it was for her firstborn to be without a comeback! The part of her that thrilled at challenge and had a natural taste for sport found the sight of him trying desperately hard to keep his expression calm and measured almost—exciting.

He looked as though he wanted to ask what she meant, but then had thought better of it.

 _Clever boy._ He _was_ learning.

"I see you're here _sans_ the toe-rag."

He gestured vaguely in the direction of her feet, where the family servant always followed when he accompanied her on an errand. Walburga shot him a withering look.

" _That_ is a vulgarism beneath you."

Sirius snorted.

"You've called him worse."

She hardly had the time to argue this point with him—there _was_ a fine distinction between reminding a servant of his place and childish, petulant insults—and anyway, that would be just what he wanted.

"Kreacher is at present tending to Narcissa," she informed with, with utmost dignity. "Who regrettably finds herself under the weather this morning."

His ears seemed to prick up at this news. Inwardly, Walburga smiled—but she kept her outer facade as placid as ever.

"What's wrong with Cissy?"

"Your cousin is _with child_ , Sirius Orion," she said, dryly. "It is an unfortunate side-effect of the state of things that one often feels—unwell."

In this case helped along by a combination of harmless—if unpleasant—magical herbs slipped into her breakfast.

Of course, Walburga would have done nothing that might endanger the _child_. She only needed her favorite niece—less than desirous of company for a few hours.

At this mention of the ways of women, Sirius lost his cool affect—his ears burned scarlet with embarrassment, and he muttered something indistinct about being sorry he had asked.

"I—suppose she'll be alright, though?"

"After a few hours of quiet and sleep."

She busied herself with the task of stacking her clean plates in the satchel that was to be taken back to Grimmauld Place, and allowed the full implication of these words to delicately sink into her son's always suggestible mind.

"Do you have plans for the day?" Walburga asked, briskly, when she thought the appropriate amount of time had passed.

Sirius scratched his head and let the legs of his chair fall back down to the floor with a _clunk_.

"Nothing for the morning. I've a friend coming over midday to watch— _him_." He jerked his head towards the couch at the aforementioned 'him', who glared back, haughtily, over the edge of his book. "I'm going out for lunch, after which I planned on coming straight back and holing up here for the afternoon."

"Lunch with _whom_ , dare I ask?"

A funny look passed over his face—not one that she thought she had seen in a very long time, if she had ever seen it. Not mischief, or even a sense of guilt—not precisely. More—studied reservation.

Not something she was used to from him at all.

"I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because—I don't think you'll entirely _approve_."

She snapped the case shut and raised one eyebrow, sardonically.

"When has that ever stopped you in the past from doing or saying _anything_?"

Sirius raised his hands, palms out, in a gesture of slightly mocking conciliation.

"Perhaps I've finally learned my lesson."

She let out a little impatient sigh—he was practically begging her to press him on this issue, and Walburga had to admit, her interest _was_ piqued.

"Let us hope that's true." She gave him a hard look. "Have you finished your Christmas shopping?"

His mouth twisted in the customary grimace at this change of subject.

"Yeah…mostly."

"And what did you get your father?"

He shifted guiltily in his chair and didn't reply. She clucked her tongue—typical. Orion had made him buy a gift for everyone but himself!

"Well—since you've _obviously_ left it late, I think you should spend your morning productively and rectify that situation."

"What are you—what d'you mean?"

"I will watch over your brother," she said, matter-of-factly. "There's no sense in you staying cooped up in this flat all day. I've long since learned excessive time spent inside only makes you irritable. Why don't you go amuse yourself out of doors for a few hours before this, ah— _mysterious_ lunch date of yours?"

He was, predictably, suspicious—as he must always be when she yielded to him and gave him something he wanted easily. Walburga felt a prickling on the side of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye she spied her younger son giving her a shrewd look that reminded her far too much of Orion.

"You want me gone."

Her gaze snapped back to Sirius, who was now eyeing her with a far less shrewd, but still distrustful expression.

"I don't want you _underfoot_ ," she correctly him, tartly. "I was going to start in on cleaning this place for Christmas, so it will be fit for our festivities on the twenty-fifth."

She shot the living room a look of unfeigned disgust. It was certainly a plausible project to keep her here for a few hours.

Sirius seemed unsure, and she could tell—for he had by far the most open face of anyone in their family—that he was weighing his options and the attendant risks attached to this new opportunity she had dropped in his lap.

"I really don't mind hanging around," he said, slowly. "Keeping Reg company…"

She smiled, faintly.

"Why, Sirius Orion—I would almost think you _missed_ me, yesterday, to be so eager for a whole day of my company." His mouth thinned into a straight line. "Or are you feeling ill, yourself? Perhaps you ought to go back to bed, where I can— _tend_ to you."

He stood up and pushed his chair out, roughly—his mind made up.

"That won't be necessary." He walked over to the closet by the door, rummaged through it, and pulled out a leather jacket—not the one she had disposed of a week earlier, Walburga noted, annoyed, but a new addition to his wardrobe he had not counted on her spotting in the open this morning.

"You know, think I _could_ do with a walk—and—some fresh air—" He pulled the coat on. "Come to think of it, there are—you know, a few errands I've got to run."

He hurried out of the apartment, bidding his brother a hasty 'goodbye.'

Clearly, Walburga thought, watching the back of him disappear through the door—he was quick not to press his luck.

Her boy having scented the proverbial rabbit, just as she had hoped, Walburga was in a good mood as she began unloading the basket. She hummed to herself as she laid out the light breakfast for two, a satchel of scones, and a heavy metal case of medicinal potions and herbs that she had brought for Regulus.

"What does Miss Battancourt plan to do while Narcissa is sick?"

She stopped humming abruptly.

One would have had to have been soft in the head to miss the pointed nature of Regulus's question, and when Mrs. Black turned in the direction of the sofa, she found the same insolent look she had thought she spied on his face earlier.

Now it was much more pronounced.

"Oh—I don't know," she answered, voice tight. "I'm sure she'll find _some_ way of occupying herself."

The only sound in the room was the faint clinking of stoppered potions being set down, one-by-one, in a neat line at the end of the dining room table, while plates and glasses flew from the basket to their proper place.

His brown eyes glinted in the pale morning light, streaming through the window.

"Well, she will now."

The fingers that had been busy laying out cutlery for him froze.

She turned—this time, her entire body.

"You know how I feel about sly inferences, Regulus Arcturus."

Regulus sat up and closed his book. Her eyes raked his face—but the exercise proved futile, for unlike Sirius, he rarely gave anything away—not easily.

Of course—a mother _did_ always know.

"You forget that Aunt Lucretia was here the day before yesterday."

Walburga took a sharp breath in and felt her nostrils flare dangerously. She should have seen this coming—she should have _known_ that Lucretia would not be able to resist meddling in her affairs, and blabbing to the only relevant, rapt audience she could find.

What she could _not_ have anticipated was the veiled threat that hovered just beneath her younger son's words.

Mother and son now found themselves in the very odd and novel position of having to size one another up.

"It would be better," she broke the silence, calmly. "If you did not follow in your aunt's footsteps, and learned to mind your own business."

She waved her wand, and another fork, knife and spoon landed with military precision next to the fruit bowl.

"I _could_ tell him."

Mrs. Black poured herself a cup of tea. She took great care in the steeping, adding two teaspoons of sugar precisely, and pouring the final dash of cream. These gestures gave her crucial time to think.

In her family, one was used to thinking of one's relations as adversaries, to be coerced, conquered or cajoled, as needs be. One always had a strategy in place, a contingency plan for each and every potential threat to one's interest in this carefully calibrated system.

The situation she found herself in now was entirely new.

Regulus had never dared to openly defy her.

Beneath her irritation at this stumbling block, she recognized the thrill that always came with a new challenge.

Breakfast was ready, the table set. She sat down in her place, and gestured wordlessly that he should do the same—it was time for them to eat. Regulus, face expressionless apart from the slight fever in his eyes, rose from his place on the couch and sat down next to her—in the place where Sirius usually sat.

She scooped a pinch of sugar onto her grapefruit and cut it in quarters.

"Why haven't you?"

The grape that Regulus had skewered hovered in front of his face for a millisecond longer than it should have before he popped it in his mouth.

"You had all yesterday evening," Walburga continued, buttering a scone. " _And_ the day before. Plenty of time in which to do the thing."

He swallowed a gulp of tea and busied himself with his crumpet.

 _He hasn't, though._

Oh, he could pretend he had, claim that he and his brother had turned the game around on her, were playing along—but they both knew he hadn't. They both knew Sirius far too well.

 _The second he finds out—_ if _he finds out—he'll confront me directly._

No, Walburga's heart ceased its fluttering—no, she was safe, for now.

Of course—her eyes narrowed in on the butter dish he was fiddling with—that still left her with one more errant child to deal with than she had expected. Regulus seemed to have fallen into one of his silent fits, which was nearly as irritating to her as his brother's refusal to hold his tongue.

"Of course, it goes without saying that children should be seen and not heard," Mrs. Black commented, taking a sip of her tea. "So we really oughtn't be having this conversation at all."

His dark eyes looked up from the plate—burning with indignation.

"I'm not a _child_."

"Aren't you?"

He tapped his fingers against his teacup, betraying a rare spark of impatience.

"You know what I mean," Regulus murmured, quietly. "There's—a difference."

She rolled her eyes and took another cup of tea. Honestly, he was her son, she'd borne him, what possible distinction between 'a' and 'hers' mattered now?

"Well then…" She set the cup back down on her saucer. "I suppose all that's left to discuss is what you want in exchange for your silence."

His pale face flushed.

"I—I don't want anything from you."

"If that were true—" Her eyes glittered, dangerously. "You wouldn't have brought _any_ of this up in the first place."

He had no response for this, and so he merely picked at his food and fell into a sullen silence.

Mrs. Black was not so foolish as to think that Regulus's silence was an admission of defeat. She had been married to the boy's father for a full quarter-century, and she knew this state of affairs quite well. Silence was a tactical move—sometimes a mere retreat, sometimes auguring a stealth attack, when one had let one's guard down and least expected it.

 _And sometimes_ , she thought, as she watched her son roll a strawberry around the plate, _it was a boy acting out to get his mother's attention._

Walburga let out a sigh, all appetite for the food gone. She felt that rush she had gotten at her triumph drain out of her, leaving the tired and beleaguered middle-aged woman she saw in the glass every night before bed.

Wasn't that just the way?

The adversarial approach was really all they knew, in this family—but even if Regulus couldn't say the words, she didn't need a battle strategy to see what he was in need of.

This ill-humor her son found himself in—the mood that had compelled him to throw around uncharacteristically rash threats—came from nothing more or less than prolonged days in bed sick. The simple fact was that she not been paying him proper attention for the better part of a fortnight.

Regulus needed to be looked after and fussed over, and lately she had done precious little of either.

Of course, it didn't help that the only way he knew how to express this sense of injury was to threaten to derail her scheme for his elder brother.

Well—luckily she could fix all that in a thrice.

"When you're done eating I want you to go the lavatory," she informed him, briskly. "So that I can have a proper look at that arm."

His spoon clattered on the china dish.

"I can apply the salve to it myself."

"Have you been reading books on the healing arts while you laze about in your pajamas all day?"

He said nothing, only gave a sullen shrug.

"No?" She arched a brow. "Well until then, I will continue to look after you. I haven't checked how you've been progressing for a little while." She tilted her head and resisted her urge to reach across the table to feel his forehead. "This is as good a time as any for a check-up."

Regulus ate the rest of his breakfast at a snail's pace. When at last he could no longer pretend he was eating, Walburga cleared the rest of their plates and gently but firmly steered him by the shoulder to the tiny lavatory.

Since her younger son had been compelled to move into the flat, Walburga had, for the most part, avoided this room as much as possible. There had been a row on the third day of his convalescence, when Sirius caught her attempting to rip out the stained built-in shower and replace it with a magnificent ivory claw-footed bathtub.

He sat down on the edge of the old tub, brown eyes glassy, but obstinance obvious to anyone with a mind to recognize it. Mrs. Black knew there would be trouble.

When she reached over and began to carelessly unbutton his shirt, he pulled away sharply.

"Don't!"

"I need to see to those wounds," Walburga huffed, impatiently. "Honestly, Regulus—"

Regulus pulled up his sleeve and clumsily held out his arm. The bandages he had replaced himself were not as tight or well-wrapped as she would have done, and they were already oozing an unhealthy-looking yellow substance.

She narrowed her eyes dangerously. Did this boy forget that she had been there that night, that she had seen to _his_ injuries as well as to his brother's, and that she knew full-well there were more cuts than that one that needed to be attended to?

No…she supposed he _had_ already been asleep by the time she got around to nursing him, to looking over each and every affliction rendered—each new discovery like another knife stuck in her ankle.

The damage done to her sons had been an odd reflection of their personalities.

Where Sirius had sported bold, deep wounds, the product of rash derring-do, as plain as the nose on his face—his younger brother was covered in hundreds of tiny scars, invisible to the naked eye, which one would have never known of if one wasn't looking for them.

He clearly wanted to keep it that way, she thought, aggravated.

"I'm not ruining a _perfectly_ good pair of pajamas soaking it in salve and potions because you're too stubborn to remove your shirt." She rolled her eyes. "I don't know where all this false modesty comes from. I am _your mother_ —there's not a part of you I haven't seen before. When you were infants one could hardly _keep_ you and your brother swaddled, you wriggled so much."

He flushed with embarrassment and muttered something disagreeable she couldn't make out—but Regulus Arcturus could not argue the point, and so he unbuttoned his silk pajama shirt and, in a small act of defiance, dropped it unceremoniously on the floor.

In the stark and antiseptic light of the lavatory his torso and arms looked much worse than she had expected. An irregular pattern of small cuts and bruises dotted both arms, his chest—the area around his throat, especially—some healing well, others, deeper, which would leave pockmarks and scars.

None of them held a candle to the large chunk of flesh that had been ripped from his arm. _That_ , Walburga knew, was beyond anyone's ability to fix. Even her own prodigious skills at healing were not up to the task, and so her younger son would go the rest of his life forever reminded of his brush with—whatever it was he had encountered in that place.

She was no shrinking violet when it came to magic—even magic of the darker variety—but just the thought of what had done _that_ to her son filled her with a sickly dread. It was the only thought that made his presence in this dingy accommodation palatable.

The utter banality of the place, while distasteful to her pride as a witch, also comforted one with the feeling that no magic, dark or otherwise, could penetrate the pedestrian fog that surrounded the housing block Sirius had chosen to live in.

 _Nothing would touch her sons while they were here._

Regulus avoided looking at her, and conscious of his self-consciousness, she began to do her work, painstakingly cleaning and redressing the wound on his arm, dabbing each and every one of the minor nicks and cuts that peppered his torso. The potion she used to prevent scarring caused an unpleasant sizzle sensation on the skin, but Regulus, to his credit, didn't flinch.

He never shirked, never complained—and only once did she feel him recoil—at the moment Walburga first unwrapped his old bandages to look at the wound on his arm.

When she had finished the task of cleaning and ministering to his wounds, she chanced glancing up at his face. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead, and his dark hair was plastered to his temples. Though Regulus looked peaked and feverish, his forehead was very cold when she reached up without warning to check his temperature.

"When was the last time you had a bath, Regulus Arcturus?"

He flinched.

"I'm perfectly clean."

"That was not the question I asked. I asked when it was you last had a bath."

His eyes flickered strangely under the florescent lights.

"I don't—remember. Yesterday?"

Walburga pursed her lips. He was usually so much better at telling lies—this one was so feeble, even Sirius wouldn't have attempted it.

"It's obviously been too long, if you can't remember when last you had one."

"I don't need one."

This must've been the influence of Sirius—she'd have to talk to him at some point about being a better example to his brother. She couldn't imagine any other reason Regulus would object to her running him a bath than a bout of willful stubbornness. He had always liked to take baths, when he was young—had enjoyed the soaking, the play of magical bath soaps on the edge of the water, and had taken to getting clean and fresh in a way his trouble-prone brother never had.

This was exactly what he needed. It was just the thing to perk him up—the sort of special attention he had hitherto missed.

Without another word, she waved her wand carelessly at the tap, and the spout began to gush out water.

Regulus leaped up from his spot at the edge of the basin and scrambled as far away from the tub as it was possible to be in the cramped lavatory.

"Turn it off!" he demanded, back flat against the towel rack. "Turn it off _now_."

Perhaps it was the tap which drowned him out that prevented her from hearing the alarm in Regulus's voice—but she did not obey. In fact, she had already plugged the drain and had begun to sprinkle powdered soap from the end of her wand, totally oblivious to the oncoming disaster.

"Don't be ridiculous," Walburga said, over the loud sound of running water. "I'll sanitize it and fill it with a balm so you can soak your wounds. It won't hurt, and you'll feel _much_ better—"

It happened so fast she hadn't even realized that he had begun shaking like mad, nearly having a fit, and when Regulus shoved past her with a desperation bordering on frenzy, she was still insensible enough to balk.

"Regulus Arcturus Black!" She cried, angrily. "What on _earth_ do you think you're—"

The sound of him being violently sick all over the toilet seat and floor cut her voice like the strings of a violin.

Walburga gasped and stepped backwards. Regulus kneeled, half-sprawled on the toilet he had tried and failed to deposit most of his breakfast in. with a feeble wave of the wand he still clutched at his side, Walburga's son managed to lift the filthy seat and heave the little left in his stomach.

When he was completely spent, he rested his head in the gap, hidden from view.

She had never understood the adage about a deer freezing at wand-light before this moment. Mrs. Black stood stock-still, gaped in mute horror at her son, chest still heaving over the toilet seat, for once at a total loss at what to do.

"Turn it off… _please_."

For no reason that she could explain, Mrs. Black, fingers trembling, reached over the old built-in tub and turned the tap off by hand. The knob was rusted, the product of her other son's lax cleaning, and the action required physical effort. The copper was so unyielding that Walburga had to flex the muscles in her wrist in a manner she, who had a servant to do anything her wand would not, was unaccustomed to.

But the knob did turn, the stream of water ended, leaving nothing but the steady _drip-drip-drip_ from the old faucet into the tub.

She vanished what remained and stood up.

Walburga Black was not a woman used to being gripped with uncertainty. She liked decisions—to make them quickly and to never stray from a path once she had chosen it.

She did not like this feeling that had come over her now, as she stared at her son's scarred body, looking small and broken as he lay over the edge of the toilet, still coughing up bile—this intense, dizzying sense of not knowing what was wrong or how to fix it.

She had been warned—and as was so often the case, she had ignored the warning.

 _"_ _Regulus has been through a great ordeal."_

 _She had barely been able to stomach Dumbledore's presence in the moment of crisis. Now, with her mind and emotions more in control—the wheels of her brain turning as she plotted out her next move—now his being in the flat, daring to lecture her and her husband about the welfare of their own sleeping children—was an irksome irritation, an utter impertinence._

 _"_ _It will take time for him to recover."_

 _"_ _I am_ perfectly _capable of caring for him," she griped, before Orion had a chance to get a word in. "And I know_ precisely _how long it will take for him to get better."_

 _Dumbledore's eyes had glinted in that knowing, patient way she had always hated._

 _"_ _There are physical wounds, Walburga—and there are magical wounds." He peered at her over his spectacles, down his crooked nose. "Some scars are left by neither."_

 _"_ _Whatever did this to him—"_

 _"—_ _Is not here to answer for it. I could not even say what it was, entirely. Regulus may choose to divulge more of what happened to him this night—the elf could, if you wished to make him—but I believe, until he is ready to tell you, you ought to be patient with him."_

 _She had a vague idea that Orion and he had discussed this, when she left the room to check on Sirius for what felt like the hundredth time that night. She knew it was ridiculous—he was ill, he was under the influence of a sleeping draught, and even if he did wake up, the windows were all locked—but she could not shake off this fear that she would go into that room and find him gone again._

 _Vanished._

 _Whatever had happened in the cave was beyond her limited scope of imagination._

 _"_ _Regulus will be fine." She sniffed—what did he know of their family? Of them? Nothing! "He is resilient—he is a Black."_

 _Blacks healed quickly—everyone knew that. Her son was stronger than they all gave him credit for._

He looked like a broken china doll, lying there on the linoleum.

She took a step away from the bone-dry bathtub and towards him. Her foot caught on the slippery tile, and Walburga grabbed at the brass towel rack to keep from slipping.

 _More weakness._

Regulus had grown still, his breaths no longer wheezy and uneven. His narrow torso rose and fell softly, while his head remained lurched over the bowl.

Walburga raised her wand—then hesitated. He heard the motion—she was always swift with her wand movements, and the swish in a lavatory that was otherwise as still as a tomb stood out—and his shoulders tensed.

She vanished the vomit that coated the floor and toilet-seat. Instantly, the sick disappeared, though the acrid smell lingered.

Walburga hovered a foot away from him, as if some invisible force held her at bay, prevented her from going any further. Though she knew that the spell was strong enough to clean everything, until she saw his face, she did not want to go away. She had, without even realizing it, clutched one of Sirius's dingy old towels, almost as if it were a talisman to ward off some evil spirit.

"I'm…I think I'm fine now."

She started. He hadn't moved, but his voice sounded normal—apart from the slight echo of the toilet bowl. Except—no—no figure draped over a toilet in a Muggle lavatory, no wizard, no Black, no son of hers in such a state could ever be thought of as 'normal.'

Walburga took another step forward—what was restraining her? There was nothing dangerous about him, he was her youngest, her compliant, easy-going child—then where did this animal instinct, which told her to hang back, come from?

"Thank you," he murmured, and to her ears the voice that spoke the words sounded ancient. "For cleaning up."

What was she afraid of?

Walburga set the towel on the edge of the sink.

"You're welcome," She said, keeping her voice calm, to match his.

He was so close she could have reached out a hand to touch him, if she wanted to.

"What do you…" She hesitated. "Want of me?"

It was not a question Walburga had ever asked her son, and it had a curious, softening effect—for it was almost pleading in its gentleness. His shoulders, tense at her immediate proximity to the source of so much natural shame, relaxed again.

"Please just—go away." Regulus lifted up his head, and turned his pale face—fever gone from the eyes, replaced with something far more disquieting. "I'll—I want to be alone."

His face shone with sweat and—she realized, in a moment that made her heart lurch painfully—with tears.

"Very well."

His mother—her face now pale as well, and drawn—nodded slowly, and without another word, turned and walked out of the lavatory, shutting the door behind her. The hard click of the lock echoed through the empty flat.

She wandered back into the living room and sat down on the old sofa, her resolution never to touch Sirius's furniture all but forgotten in the daze the middle-aged woman found herself in.

As Walburga looked around the room, bathed in the pale light of a rising morning, she wondered that she had ever come to see the flat as a sanctuary from anything.

Her children might have been safe from dark magic in this place—but dark magic was not the only thing that could hurt them.

* * *

The loud cry of distinctly feminine frustration was the kind Sirius recognized as being meant to draw attention and garner sympathy, so he looked up from the old copy of _Melody Maker_ he'd been perusing and turned in the direction of the dressing room door which separated him from his companion.

"What's the problem?" he called, laughter in his voice. "Need help with a zip?"

"Oh—it's—I look _utterly ridiculous_."

Sirius felt his grin widen and his excitement grow.

"I'd let someone else be the judge of that, if I were you!" He called, tempering his amusement with gentle encouragement. "Come out, then. Let's have a look-see."

Another loud and inarticulate cry of frustration, followed by some French phrase he was sure was delightfully rude.

" _Non_. I will not. I refuse."

"Why?"

"Because—oh, this was the most _absurd_ idea you ever had."

He let out a barking laugh and tossed the magazine on the chair beside him.

"That only goes to show how little you know me, still." He smirked and lazily stretched his arms towards the ceiling, enjoying the feeling of it—of being able to do something his family disapproved of, however small, without scrutiny. His mother had been right—it would have been stifling to spend the bulk of the day stuck inside with Reg. "This was not even in the top _fifty_ most absurd ideas I've ever had."

"Well—it was the most absurd idea you've had _today,_ then."

"No. _That_ was taking you on the underground."

He grinned at the memory of her horrified reaction to the Piccadilly Line. Through the wall between them he heard a distinctly French huff.

"We are not _nifflers._ If we were meant to be tunnel through the earth, God would have made us with—with—"

"—With _magic_?"

Another loud huff, after which she told him if he didn't stop his ceaseless chattering she would not come out at all—simply apparate back to Grimmauld Place, where she should not have left in the first place to go on this ridiculous exploration of Muggle London with him.

"That's probably true—but it's a bit late to turn back now." This time he did understand the French exclamation. "Oh, don't be like _that_. We haven't even gotten lunch yet."

"Yes, well—I only dine with gentlemen."

"I _am_ a gentlemen!"

"Only by birth. You certainly don't _act_ like one."

"Oh, how she stings with her poison tongue! Guilty, all the same."

Sirius laughed and stepped back from the dressing room door, allowing himself to lazily peruse the rest of what the small, offbeat SoHo charity shop had on offer.

It had all passed in a whirlwind—a glorious several hours spent doing exactly what he wanted with the exact companion of his choice. Going to Muggle places with Colette was like discovering them for the first time all over again—her enthusiasm was only matched by her curiosity, and he never tired of answering the endless stream of questions, which seemed to have been bottled up in her like a champagne cork. She had clearly spent a lifetime saving them up, and it seemed that he was meant to be the one to answer them—that he was preordained that they should have met.

All she needed was someone to give her permission—was it arrogant for him to assume he was the best fit for the job? Probably, but Sirius didn't much care.

They had ended up _here_ on his suggestion, after Colette had complained about every Muggle ticket-taker and shop assistant taking one look at her day gown and asking if they were going to a fancy dress party.

The shop had something of everything. He had often passed it in his teenaged years, in those summers at Grimmauld Place when he preferred to spend his time roaming every bit of London—any excuse not to be cooped up in the house he found so stifling. There was a magnificent collection of consigned clothing, a great deal of it from the 50s, by the look of it—and hats of every style and color, stacked to the ceiling in a way that put Ollivander's to shame. A glass display case housed the more expensive watches and jewelry, which the bespectacled girl behind the counter and informed them, after giving Sirius a suspicious once-over, she could 'open up' if they 'wanted a closer look.'

Sirius's eyes fell on a turntable in the corner—he hadn't noticed it when they first came back here. A stack of albums lay next to it. Curious, he walked over to it, and began to idly flip through the singles.

His face lit up.

"Colette—come out here and have a look at this—"

At the sound of the dressing room door opening, Sirius's arm dropped to his side.

"Well…" She stepped out of the room, shyly. "What—do you think?"

Sirius set the record down and walked over to her, careful to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

He'd given her a pile of flared jeans, skirts, dresses and boots, every cut and color and daring fashion imaginable from which to choose—and from that she had constructed an outfit consisting of a knee-length orange tweed skirt, high-necked cream jumper and a pair of beat-up penny loafers.

In spite of all his better instincts, Sirius laughed.

"What is—why are you doing that?" Colette put her hands on her hips. "I knew you would—what is so funny to you, may I ask?"

" _Nothing_ —I'm not—" He forced himself into something like a straight face. "It's just…well, I suppose I shouldn't be _surprised_ you went for the option that's the most old-fashioned, most like a witch possible, but it's just so…"

"So what?"

He smiled.

"You just look like such a _square_."

Her blue eyes widened in confusion.

"What is this 'square' mean?" He laughed again. "That is a _shape_."

"It's also a state of being."

Sirius explained, in the kindest and most complimentary fashion, that this term was by no means an insult, and only referred to people who were decent, upright, and altogether proper.

Colette seemed less than convinced.

"Are _you_ a square?" she asked, pointedly.

He snorted. As if!

"No, I'm the last person on earth anyone would call a square." He ran a hand through his hair, which fell careless into his eyes. "I'm, ah—strictly speaking, cool."

Only with her could he have gotten away with saying something so ridiculous—and even still, only _just._ A smiled peeped out from under her disapproving gaze as she crossed her arms. Sirius felt a lurch in his stomach—the 'little miss librarian' look was growing on him.

"What does it mean to be 'cool'?" Colette asked, innocently—though there was a little bite in her voice. "Can you explain this?"

"I'll do you one better." He strolled into the dressing room she'd just vacated. "I'll _show_ you."

Sirius pulled out a leather jacket and pair of aviator sunglasses he had handed Colette on a whim. They were among his slightly sillier suggestions for _accoutrement_ she should try on—along with a cowboy hat, which he had hoped she would try on but known she wouldn't.

He draped the jacket over the French girl's petite shoulders and placed a pair of aviator sunglasses over her ears, then steered her in the direction of a large mirror in the corner.

"Wait—just one thing—"

The black beret from a nearby mannequin was whipped off in a thrice and plopped on her head.

He stood back to admire his work with a connoisseur's eye.

"That's _cool._ "

Colette stared at herself in the glass in bewilderment—for a moment he wondered if she didn't recognize herself. Certainly he doubted if Narcissa would have been able to pick her friend out of the average crowd of Muggle passers-by, were she among them. The French witch looked somewhere between 'recently-rebelled-from-parents-and-still-figuring-out-her-style teenaged punk' and 'ironic beatnik at a costume party.'

Not that he thought explaining that to Miss Battancourt would make it any clearer to her. They still had quite a ways to go in her Muggle-related education, and the nuances of fashion was low on his list of priorities.

As she examined herself in the mirror, chewing her lip thoughtfully, he wondered what she was thinking. She often surprised him—old-fashioned and conservative in her views one moment, more open-minded than he the next. A heart full of contradiction—rather like his own.

"Is it better to be 'cool' or 'a square'?"

Sirius looked over her shoulder and into the mirror—the jacket was too big for her, and though the glasses slid down her face in a manner _he_ found rather endearing, it was obvious she did not enjoy continually having to push them up her nose.

His face softened.

"It's better to be yourself."

He helped Colette out of the coat and took the glasses from her when she sheepishly handed them back.

"I suppose I shall never be—how you say it— _cool_?"

" _Cool_ is in the eye of the beholder, anyway." He brushed a piece of lint off her shoulder. This sweater was of a thinner material than her robes, and he could feel the heat of her body more easily through it. He pulled his hand away as if he'd been scorched. "It's about—not caring what other people think."

"Not even you?"

Sirius felt an involuntary flush creep over his face. She never flirted intentionally—at least, he didn't think she was conscious of it—but occasionally she said things like that, so innocently, and it made him feel—

Well, like he wasn't entirely in control of the situation.

He scratched the side of his head and retreated to the glass case near the window.

"Especially not me." Sirius forced a laugh. "My opinions aren't worth anything."

She creeped up behind him—though her steps were light, he could feel the slight tickle of her breath against his back.

To distract himself, Sirius looked down at the case, full of jewelry and tarnished watch-chains and the other items the shopkeeper had deemed worthy of protection—and his eyes idly traced over a string of pearls at the center, which surrounded the largest piece in the collection—a Victorian emerald-studded broach.

"That looks like something your mother would wear."

Sirius looked up at her, surprised. Sure enough, her eyes were trained on the exact same spot in the case.

"Does it, really?" He looked back down with new interest. Certainly he could see it was the nicest thing in there—the price tag spoke to that, if nothing else. It was probably the finest item in the whole place. The image in the center was a cameo of a woman embracing a child, and the outside was dotted with emeralds and pearls. "How can you tell?"

"It's very similar to the style of jewelry she wears—and she's fond of that shade of green. She likes emeralds and amethysts."

"Do you really notice that kind of thing?" He hadn't a clue. "I wouldn't have thought you the type with a head for jewels."

"My grandmother taught me," the French girl said, a tad haughtily. "Any proper lady must know about these things."

"And why exactly _does_ a lady have to know about 'these things?" Sirius asked, his voice teasing. "Pray tell me, Mademoiselle, what use is that information to you?"

He had expected her to laugh, throw back a quip in turn—but Colette suddenly became very interested in the watch chains at the far back of the glass case.

"I don't…I suppose it is something women must know about when…when they are married."

The lightness in Sirius deflated like an old balloon. When she turned to look at him, was he mad, or did her face look more flushed than it had had before? The old awkwardness regarding the plans he was attempting to dissuade her from had reared its ugly head, and it left them both pensive and at a loss for words.

"Practical information for anyone in your—for anyone."

He tried to pass it off for a joke, but it was a feeble one, at best. Colette stared down at the case, and her eyebrows furrowed together—the thoughtful expression that seemed as if it was made for her.

"I think you should buy it for her."

Sirius laughed—this time, without humor.

"Tell me another one."

"Didn't you say you needed to find her a Christmas present?" Colette needled, pushing at his shoulder. "Isn't that what she thinks you're doing right now, in fact?"

He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling—why had he mentioned that he hadn't gotten something for either of his parents yet? Sirius knew the reason—it was because it was easy to slip into the kind of comfortable intimacy with Colette, where he off-handedly mentioned all sorts of things he wouldn't have told other girls. His prior dates had been only too pleased to accept a brush-off when the question of his family was brought up.

That was far harder when the girl in question happened to be staying with them.

Though, he thought, watching Colette's blue eyes sparkle with nosy mischief as she tapped the lock on the case with her wand and opened it to take a closer look at the broach, he had the sense she would have been interested regardless.

She held it up to his jacket, as if he was an appropriate model for the thing.

"I can't get her that—she'd know it was from a Muggle shop."

"You could charm it to make it magical. Like that flying contraption of yours."

"Great example—my bike, the existence of which we both know positively _thrills_ her."

"It's your first Christmas together in—some time." She put the broach in his hand and gently pressed his fingers around it. "You should get her something tasteful and—unique." Sirius stared down at the hand, closed around the jeweled object, uncertain—and Colette pressed her palm to his. "I promise you, she will like it very much."

It had never occurred to him to get his mother jewelry—he had heard too many of her scathing remarks on the taste and quality of too many other witches' necklaces and rings over the years to even entertain the notion of such a personal and feminine gift. Not even his father got Walburga jewels.

But the look of certainty on Colette's face bolstered his confidence.

Sirius looked back down at the carved image of mother and child—then set it back down on the case, as if afraid he would break the thing. It was beautiful, truly—an exquisite piece. He imagined her reaction to receiving such a gift from him and—a strange, tightening feeling started in his chest.

Sirius blinked and looked away from the case—and his eyes fell on the chair, where the discarded record still lay.

"That's right!" He picked it up and held it out to Colette. "I have to play you a song."

As he slipped the single out of its cardboard case—an earlier hit from one of his favorite punk bands, which he'd discovered sometime around fourth or fifth year—he explained to her how the turn-table worked.

Unfortunately, Colette didn't like this Muggle innovation nearly as much as she had the Victoria and Albert or Houses of Parliament.

"You actually _enjoy_ this?"

She wrinkled her nose at the discordant guitar riffs.

"Of course!"

Sirius head-banged a bit to indicate the degree to which he enjoyed it—but that did not raise the song's value in his female companion's estimation.

"It's so vulgar. And noisy—and there's no melody."

"But it's _cool._ "

"I am liking this ' _cool'_ less and less the more you tell me about it."

He clutched his wounded heart, then lifted up the needle ("There's no accounting for taste!") and rifled through the rest of the collection, determined to find her something she would like.

Sirius's mission to teach her the wonders of the non-magic world had been going so well, thus far. He wasn't about to fail over music!

As his gray eyes fell on one brightly colored single in the back of the pile, Sirius's mouth split into an involuntary grin. _Perfect._

"Oh—here's something right up your alley." He wagged the record in front of her face. "You'll like them. This lot are all Swedes—and aren't you an expert on that country?"

She huffed good-naturedly.

"You are _très amusant._ " Two blue eyes twinkled up at him. "I only know enough to spot an imposter."

He took the record out and handed her the slip cover. Colette peered doubtfully at the four jumpsuit-clad pop singers posed on it, then back up at Sirius—but he was too busy laying the needle on the record to notice.

As soon as the Spanish guitar started to play, her eyes widened.

"Oh…."

Sirius turned and smiled.

 _Bingo._

"You like it?"

"This is—very pretty." She tilted her head and her dimple peaked out. "So different from the other one."

The girl leaned against the glass cabinet, a misty, silly, romantic look coming over her face.

Sirius watched Colette, as she immersed herself in the song, caught up in her own world, totally un-self-conscious. He might as well have not been there, for all her dreamy expression betrayed. Sirius shifted his weight and cleared his throat—not quite ready for her to forget his presence.

"You know…it _occurs_ to me that you and I met at a ball, and yet we never got to _dance_."

"That's because there weren't enough young ladies in the hall. No one much wanted to." She swayed to the beat of the song. "I had just had expensive lessons, too. My great-aunt was very disappointed."

"Well—I guess I'll have to make it up to her, then."

He walked to the center of the empty room and held out his arms—the right at her shoulder's height, the left at her waist.

Colette flushed and stood up straight—staring at his open arms as if they were a trap Sirius had set for her to walk into.

"Come on." He grinned, boyishly. "No one's watching."

"I don't—"

"—It'll be _fun_."

Face pink, she hesitated—until something in his coaxing smile spurred her on, and she stepped over, hand in his, arm on his shoulder. Sirius felt his hand brush against her narrow waist, and they began a slow, awkward waltz to the music.

"It's been a long time since I've done this," Sirius laughed—and he was alarmed to hear his own nervousness. What did he have to be—there was nothing to be nervous about. He was never nervous about girls! What was wrong with him? "I might—need you to lead."

"You don't," she said, softly. "You dance beautifully."

As the song picked up tempo at the chorus, Sirius's confidence surged, and he took a risk and twirled her around once—the tweed skirt flared out and he caught a glimpse of her knees. Those years of forced dance lessons, the drilling of his dance-master that had made a thirteen-year-old wizard trip and scowl—all that melted away, leaving only the pure muscle memory of the steps, the rhythm, _one-two-three, one-two-three…_

He didn't have to think, after awhile.

That gave him the freedom to look down at her face.

Colette was too busy counting to herself to keep time to notice him staring.

The morning had been wonderful. For the first time in he didn't know how long, Sirius had felt like a normal person—what he had always imagined other people, in different lives, felt like all the time. Young and carefree, the war and the tumultuous storm of his family only a distant cloud, far off on the horizon.

When he had first met her, Colette Battancourt seemed an illusory figure. Now in his arms, in front of him, she felt like the only real thing the world. A port in the storm.

Some small, as of yet untouched goodness left in the world.

As if she could feel the heat from his gaze, at that moment the twin cerulean eyes turned up towards him.

 _Merlin_ , that dash of freckles across her nose was maddening.

He wanted to count them, see how many there were…but that would require he lean forward—

—Just as a great crash from somewhere over their heads sounded.

Sirius whirled around—he and Colette broke apart, just in time for him to dodge the mannequin falling directly on his head.

" _Bloody_ hell! What in the—"

The shelf slats that had been holding up the teetering collection of hats, shoes and knick-knackery that covered the back wall broke clean in half, and utter pandemonium broke out as all the rickety configuration of objects toppled over and crashed to the floor around them.

A feather boa got caught in the record-player, and the needle scratched violently across the single.

Colette pressed herself against the wall in time to avoid get covered by an avalanche of moldering tweed jackets.

" _What_ is going on back there?"

It was the saleswoman, calling from the front of the shop.

"Erm—nothing!"

Sirius, who had been swearing like a sailor as he hoped over dresses and records, waved his wand with a hasty flourish, and the boxes and hats began to fly back to their spots.

By the time the woman had marched back to them, her face red with anger, the room was—more or less—just as it had been. Sirius explained, in a manner that would have stretched credulity for the best-tempered of shopkeepers, that a mere hat stand had fallen over and been the cause of the disturbance.

"But I fixed it, see?" He waved jerked the hatstand up and waved it in front of her face, as if she couldn't see it for herself.

The shopkeeper was not predisposed to trust his word—having thought him up to no good from the start—and when she found no disaster, she looked around for some other cause for her displeasure and found it in the emerald cameo broach, still sitting, untouched, on the glass case.

She rounded on Sirius, furiously.

"I knew you had a shifty look about you the second you come in here—did you pick that lock?"

She began counting objects, as if she believed he'd stuffed his pockets with them.

"Don't look at me—" Sirius laughed and jerked his head at his companion. "It was her that opened it up."

The shopkeeper tapped her heel impatiently and glared at Colette, who responded with a bold look, made particularly funny by her demure outfit.

"I don't believe your _girlfriend_ here did anything of the kind." She sniffed in Colette's direction. "She looks too nice for the likes of you."

Sirius went pink around the ears.

"You'd be surprised what she's capable of."

Colette stepped forward, ready to cool any hot heads—but the woman was placated when Sirius loudly told her they were going, and would she wrap up the broach and tell them the cost of his girlfriend's new togs, so that they could leave directly.

"You shouldn't be paying for me," Colette said, as they were rung up—obviously both embarrassed and pleased. "It isn't proper."

"Nothing fun in life is proper! Anyway, you can get me back later," Sirius told her, as they stepped onto the street, knowing full well he wouldn't let her pay him back.

He'd been the one to convince her to even try them on—who was he to make her pay for it? It was hardly like she had expensive taste. The broach he'd gotten his mother, now safely stashed in his pocket, was far more expensive.

"Oh—I still need a new watch—what's the time, quick?"

She told him.

"Fantastic—we're late! Here—"

As he pulled her by the arm down the nearest alleyway—the safest place from which to apparate—Sirius found himself unaccountably glad that he had not yet explained to Colette what the term 'girlfriend' meant.

* * *

The flat was so dirty—at least, by Mrs. Black's standards, a great deal higher than the average young bachelor—that the job of deep-cleaning every surface in preparation for the Christmas festivities kept Mrs. Black busy and distracted from her troubles into the late morning. It was almost eleven when Regulus emerged from the kitchen, fully dressed in a set of handsome black day robes, and bearing no trace of the earlier scene that had occurred between them.

"From the amount of leavings I've found in the corners, you'd think your brother was inviting the vermin in every afternoon for tea."

Coming from any other woman, this remark would have obviously been a joke—but as Walburga Black had not yet shown signs of having a single humorous or ironic bone in her body, Regulus did not laugh.

"…Are you going to tell Father?"

She looked up from the corner she had been scouring. Regulus had his face turned down over yet another of his books, but she could still see his expression—uncertain, and very young.

He looked like her son again.

"About what?"

Regulus sighed.

"You _know._ "

Walburga rose from the corner and glided over to him. She supposed the time for playing stupid had passed. Her youngest was far too clever to entertain it long.

"That will depend."

She pulled his chin up with her index finger. Unlike Sirius, he did not fight the gesture—only looked straight back at her, dark brown eyes a blank.

"Depend on what?"

Walburga released his chin abruptly and stepped away.

"Well, if one of his sons intends to never go near a bathtub again, I think your father would like to know."

He tossed his book aside in a very Sirius-like way.

" _Please_ don't tell him."

Her shoulders sank.

For the second time in a week, Walburga wondered at the influence her husband had over their two sons. Did he realize how much more his opinions and views mattered to them than hers? No—surely not. It wouldn't be like Orion to assume anything of the kind.

It was maddening, of course—but it also strangely touched her.

"Perhaps in _this_ case—" She delicately twirled her wand between her fingers. "We could both benefit from embracing the virtue of holding our tongues."

Regulus nodded, slowly—he was no fool, he understood her perfectly well. Not that she had harbored any serious fears of him interfering with her plans for Sirius Orion, not _really_ …still, it was better to have a little safety mechanism in place.

Her son slouched back in his chair and let out a long-suffering sigh. Though the sound of his teenaged _ennui_ made her long to roll her eyes, there was also something reassuring about it.

She wasn't ready to take Orion's claims that 'they were grown men' seriously, just yet.

Walburga absently brushed the hair back from his forehead.

"There's something else." She sat down on the sofa next to him. "I wonder if you might help me with another thing."

"Of course—anything."

He was eager to please her, now. Typical.

Still—she couldn't say it wasn't welcome.

"A little project. For Christmas. For—your brother."

At this, an involuntary sneer crossed his face.

"What else does _he_ need?"

She stood up and brushed imaginary dust off of her skirts.

" _Envy_ is unbecoming, Regulus Arcturus," she said, coldly. "I hope this isn't about that girl."

He pulled a face and informed her in the most sullen tone he was capable of that it was nothing of the kind.

"I should hope not. You've nothing to covet there, believe me." She sniffed, haughtily. "That Battancourt girl is a flighty thing, really. She's got her head in the clouds half the time."

"If she finds something of interest up there, what's the problem?"

She narrowed her eyes in rank disapproval.

"Excessive imagination is no substitute for sense."

"If Sirius likes her, she's something special." He gave a sarcastic smile very much in the mould of his father. "Nothing but the best for my brother. You wouldn't allow it."

Really! She rolled her eyes. Boys—they could be so competitive. Regulus wasn't fooling anyone—certainly not her.

"When your time comes, I'll find you a witch far better," she reassured him, in a smooth voice, as she began to set the table for lunch. "Prettier and from a better family—and without silly ideas. You have far more to recommend yourself than your brother in this regard. Women prefer steady, reliable characters over dash-it-alls like Sirius."

When Walburga looked back over her shoulder, she noticed a gleam of humor in his eyes—tempered with the dryness she had started to see come out more and more these past few weeks.

"Do they really, Mother?"

"Of course—and so do their parents, more importantly." She nodded, the sage of all wisdom where this was concerned. "Mark my words—in time you'll see I'm right."

Her son let out a long sigh and curled up onto the couch. When he was in that pose he really did remind her of the small boy he once been.

"I doubt most women would want a wizard who can't even turn on a tap without—"

He stopped himself and let out another sigh. His mother turned back from her task of ladling out his soup. She marched over to him, but it was only when he could not ignore her presence, towering over him, that Regulus looked up.

"As far as I'm concerned, any witch would consider herself lucky you'd stooped to her level—and I don't want to hear anything more about—about this nonsense with the water. In time—" Her voice faltered. "—In time all will be well and as it was."

Regulus gave her a queer, oddly closed-off look—somewhere between wistful and sad. It reminded her of how Orion had looked the night before, in her bedroom.

The thought scared her.

They sat in silence—Regulus picking up his book, though his eyes did not move, instead staying fixed to their spot on the page. Walburga pretended to ignore him in favor of setting out serviettes and salad bowls.

"Do you know who Sirius is meeting today?"

"I don't trouble myself with it. One of his disagreeable friends, no doubt."

"If it were one of _them_ , he'd have told you."

Given his current delicate state, it was all she could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes and scolding him over his penchant for cryptic remarks.

"I suppose he confided this in you."

Ever since Orion had told her the whole of the events surrounding Malfoy Manor as regarded their children, Walburga had gotten the idea in her head that their sons were getting a little _too_ chummy for her taste. It was all well and good to get along, but the prospect of the two of them plotting and getting ideas into their heads to work together—and against her—was now impossible to ignore.

"No." He laughed, hollowly. "But I have an idea."

The memory of Lucretia once calling her pesky younger brother a fussbudget know-it-all rose, unbidden, in Walburga's mind.

"Well—come on. Tell me."

Regulus shook his head.

"If I'm right—then so was he." He looked back down at his book. "It _would_ upset you to know. So—it would be better if you didn't."

"That's what you think, do you?"

"Yes," Regulus replied, solemnly, and with that, he turned back to his book, as if that settled the matter.

Walburga had to wonder at the world, that a woman's children would get it into their heads it was their responsibility to make decisions for her. Who was supposed to be caring for whom in this scenario?

She was of half a mind to tell her youngest as much—but then she caught sight of the red around his eyes and thought better of it.

He needed—she didn't know what he needed, but it wasn't that.

"Lunch is ready."

"Just—a little longer."

"Your food will get cold."

"After one more of these, letters—please."

Mrs. Black threw her hands up in the air and sighed—but she did not insist and allowed him to finish the section and mark his place before coming to the table.

These boys of hers really were making her go soft in her old age, Walburga thought—as she watched him tuck into his sandwich and soup—just, of course, when she could afford it least.

There was nothing for it. His father would have to sort Regulus out.

She resolved to speak to him on the matter at the next available opportunity—and banished the image of Regulus sinking into a black lake of unfathomable depths from her mind.

Her nightmares would surely pass, just as his would.

* * *

There had been many unbelievable things Colette had seen this day—the likes of which she had hitherto only caught glimpses of in a Parisian street. _Then_ they had captured her imagination and made her wonder—how do the Muggles live? It was not a question she could have expected answer to, before meeting Sirius Black.

But she had to draw the line somewhere.

"Let me get this straight. You are a witch, capable of magic, who _also_ happens to be a writer of fantastical stories—"

"They aren't _that_ fantastical."

"—And you can't believe that the _cinema_ is real?"

At the cheeky grin that followed Sirius's rhetorical question, Colette tossed her head—but somehow the gesture didn't have the same weight in her new skirt and smart jumper, now covered in a short wool coat they had picked up from a street vendor of some Eastern European extraction they had run into in Chelsea.

She had not thought about her robes and cloak _once_ since he had charmed her reticule to fit them and tucked the garments out of sight.

"How could they have invented such a thing without magic?"

"The irony in that question is _staggering_." Sirius waved his arms about in that wild, haphazard fashion he was want to do, never mind whoever happened to be directly in the line of fire. "How do you think all of _this_ was built, then?"

She scoffed and surreptitiously vanished a puddle in front of them before they got their feet soaked. He was always teasing her—these moving plays on a screen that he claimed Muggles watched _had_ to be one of his tall tales. They sounded too wonderful to be true, in fact.

"I suppose I will believe it when I see it."

"So that means we're going to a picture, then." He reached his hand out to help her up the curb—an unconscious gesture. Colette took it gladly—his grip was firm and sure, and it gave her an excuse to—it was nice. "I'll have to pick one out that doesn't offend your delicate sensibilities."

They rounded the corner of a square just off Tottenham Court Road. A chill had settled over London, the bright clear morning giving way to steel-gray clouds that hung imposingly over the city.

 _An ominous sign for Christmas_ , Colette thought, as she shivered.

The pub on the opposite side of the street in front of them was lively and full of activity—far busier than any of the wizard-run restaurants or shops she'd visited, all so oddly deserted for Christmas time. The cheery facade and pleasant smells of the place helped diffuse the nervousness she felt at entering such a thoroughly Muggle establishment.

Sirius overtook her and gently held her arm before she reached the first step.

"You haven't forgotten what we discussed yesterday, have you?" He lowered his voice, as if someone in the noisy bar might eavesdrop on their conversation through the oak door and over the voices of carousers. "About—keeping the circumstances of how we met and—who you're staying with, and all that—under wraps?"

Colette, emboldened by a morning spent in his company and in high-spirited rebellion, rolled her eyes. How fussy _Monsieur_ Black was being—how strangely skittish, like one of her father's colts who'd been spooked. Having lunch at this pub had been his idea in the first place!

The small, self-conscious part of Colette wondered if he was having second thoughts about introducing her whoever it was they were to meet.

"Are you _always_ this mysterious about your friends?" She asked, boldly—attempting to mask her own nervousness. "It's not Albus Dumbledore we're having lunch with, is it?"

He gave her a rueful look.

"That would be a lot less tricky. And I already told you I was sorry. I _would_ have introduced you to Dumbledore, but he was very busy and he had to—get on with it." Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled. "It's too bad—if _he'd_ been there he would have smoothed everything over with McGonagall and Slughorn, and we wouldn't have had to put on that show for them."

" _I_ thought they were very kind."

"You always think _everyone_ is 'being kind'."

"I do not!"

He held up his hand, and she fell silent again.

"We're having lunch with someone who—is important to me. But she—" The pause was pregnant. "—Has a bit of a…reputation."

He had turned unaccountably serious, just then—and self-conscious, the way that he sometimes got when a subject too close to home came. Her bright blue eyes widened, turning the naturally quizzical expression to one of surprise.

"I just—don't want you going in unawares, and thinking I didn't prepare you."

She hadn't expected her curiosity to be any _more_ piqued—and yet, as usual, he had managed it.

"Is this one of your…rebellious friends?"

"In a—sense."

Colette had the idea that he was choosing his words with utmost care. Indeed, Sirius's expression and whole manner had become taciturn—where he was usually all boldness and daring, now he held back and kept his secret. The night they met they had been bound together by such a secret—magical in quite a different way than what her wand could produce.

She liked his natural openness—but occasionally the French girl caught glimpses of this _other_ side of him, the side that was far more like his inscrutable family than she was sure he would like her pointing out.

That side of Sirius perturbed her—and excited her, too.

 _Just like Mama always says…too curious for your own good…always poking your nose in where you shouldn't._

"And am I—likely to have heard of her?"

A strained twitch of the lip, almost a nervous laugh, flitted across his face.

"I would be _shocked_ if you hadn't."

Colette let out a exasperated huff. He was so maddening.

"Why don't you just tell me, then?"

"Because I—I want you to have an open mind about this, about _her_ —and if I did—" Sirius laughed. "—Believe me, you _wouldn't_."

Before she had a chance to argue that he wasn't giving her enough credit, he had opened the door, the bell tinkled, and Sirius ushered her inside the bar.

The pub where they were to lunch was a central London affair, though Colette would learn much later how unpretentious it was when compared to the restaurants and shops in this fashionable part of town. It was not unlike the Three Broomsticks, where she had lunched with Mrs. Black, Narcissa and Professor Slughorn the day before—though Colette could not imagine her friend or chaperone setting foot in a place where so many wore denim trousers and mini-skirts.

In the scant encounters she had had with Muggles before now, the young French witch had learned to be self-conscious—they were always staring at her for the way she dressed, and when they passed the old school yard in _Rouen_ and her mother snapped at her not to look at 'those ones,' the children positively goggled.

Nobody was sparing her a second glance, now. Colette looked down at her outfit—was this the reason, or was it the boost in confidence she got from being around _him_?

Sirius waved a hand in greeting at the wizened bartender (did he come here often?) and began to look around the restaurant, but before he could call out a name, a woman sitting at a table in the back corner rose up in her chair and waved him down.

"Sirius Black—you absolute _wretch_. I've been waiting half an hour."

He relaxed and turned his face towards Colette's, giving her a reassuring smile before tugging her gently by the elbow towards the table.

Colette followed shyly in his wake as he crossed to the spot across the room from which he had been called. Sirius was a little taller than the lady who had summoned him, but the look of cutting disapproval seemed to shrink him, slightly.

"You haven't been waiting _that_ long." Sirius gave her two careless kisses on each cheek. "You're always at least twenty minutes late. And anyway, I got caught up this morning."

The stranger pulled back from his embrace and looked over his shoulder, where Colette hovered awkwardly behind. She felt a strong, direct gaze sweep over her—and instantly the color rose in her cheeks.

"Evidently."

The corners of the woman's lips, tinted with coral rouge, turned upward in a sly smile.

Her creative flights of fancy aside, Colette liked to think she had sense enough to be able guess at who the mystery luncheon date might be—one of his gang of friends he was always talking about, or perhaps that mysterious muggle-born witch he had threatened to introduce her to, to prove there was no difference between them.

The woman who had risen from the table to tease Sirius was nothing like what she had expected.

She was older than they were—though still young, with long light brown hair which might've been done up very nicely some hours ago, but obvious exposure to the elements outside had left elegantly windswept around her shoulders. Though her clothes were Muggle—Colette could tell that the long tweed jacket and elegant lambs' wool cap were of a high-end cut, and spoke to taste. They suited her and she knew it, for an air of unmistakeable glamour surrounded her, though she had none of the showy pretentious of Colette's fashionable cousins.

Most of all, she exuded a natural self-assurance that left the younger woman with an instant admiration—though the gaze, while kind, also gave Colette that familiar prickling of scrutiny that seemed to follow her wherever she went in this country.

Standing next to Sirius, Miss Battancourt was struck by the simultaneous impression of familiarity and the alien between them. One could have pointed to no obvious connection in manner of dress or expression between Colette's friend and this mysterious stranger—and yet she felt, as she had felt the night of the ball with Sirius, a kind of kinship between them.

The stranger laughed, throatily.

"I wondered if you'd even show up today, you know." She addressed Colette directly. "This one's been dodging my owls for weeks, and out of the blue I get a message at the crack of dawn that said 'come to the Elephant and Castle at noon today, because I've a friend I want you to meet'—with nary an explanation for this sudden about-face. Lucky I was up for the day already." She turned back in Sirius's direction, eyes narrowed. "You _are_ a slippery one. Always have been."

Sirius laughed, uneasily.

"I take it _you_ are this mysterious friend?"

"She's not mysterious." He nudged Colette forward. "But, eh—introductions are in order." He stood back and raised his hand with a flourish. "This is Andi—for whom words fail."

The woman shook her head and snorted.

" _Andi_? God, Sirius—nobody's called me that in _years_."

"Well, it's how _I_ think of you." He beat his chest in a gesture of mea culpa. "Alright, alright—may I have the great pleasure of introducing you to one Mrs. Tonks?"

"That's _hardly_ better! It makes me sound like an old crone."

Colette dipped into a shaky curtsy. Her robes normally concealed her wobbly knees, which had never quite gotten the trick of doing the gesture elegantly.

"How do you do, Mrs. Tonks?"

At this genteel greeting, Mrs. Tonks' eyebrows flew up into her hairline.

" _Very_ well indeed." She smiled, and this time with a warmth that Colette could see was natural, not studied. "Your friend has impeccable manners, Sirius. Far better than yours."

"Who doesn't?" He laughed and flung his arm over her shoulder. The gesture felt natural, and yet Colette still felt the sensation of goose pimples down her arm. "Her name is Colette."

He waited with baited breath for some kind of recognition—they both did, in fact, for Colette was eager to please and be pleasing to anyone

"I trust this Colette has a _surname_."

Sirius hesitated—his smile stiffening at the question.

"Of—of course she does." His grip on Colette's shoulder tightened—and then, all at once, he released her, and his arm fell to his side again. "It's—Battancourt."

Colette saw his trepidation return, and he wondered for what reason Sirius would have to hide her last name from this pretty matron with the teasing laugh. Her face betrayed no recognition, though she felt the woman's keen brown eyes linger on her outfit.

"Battancourt?" Mrs. Tonks repeated, with polite curiosity. "Ah. Then you're—French."

"Oh—yes!"

They sat down at the table. Immediately Sirius pulled out a pack of cigarettes and began to light one for himself.

"Here for a visit?" Colette nodded. "Where from?"

"Oh—Rouen."

"Rouen. That's—Normandy." Mrs. Tonks snapped her finger against her thumb and pointed at Sirius. "Light me up a fag, would you? Must be dreadfully cold this time of year. Makes England seem all almost cheery, by comparison."

"He wouldn't light up one _for me,_ " the French girl said, thinking of the argument two hours previously—she had only wanted one puff, to see what they were like, but he had staunchly refused. "Oh, yes—it is! The ground is frozen on my father's farm."

"I told you, they're not for the likes of nice young women." He held the cig in between his fingers and shook his head in mock-despair. "These things will kill you, you know."

Mrs. Tonks snatched the one'd he'd lit for himself out of his hand and took a single, elegant drag.

"Yes, well—as this 'nice young woman' is taking a bus to Bethnal Green for tea with her mother-in-law after this, she'll risk it."

"That's okay. I'll allow it. You're not nice _or_ young."

"Be quiet, you little wretch."

Sirius laughed and pulled another cigarette out of his pocket, which Mrs. Tonks lit for him with an old-fashioned lighter from her inner pockets. Colette caught sight of a thin, willow strip of wood concealed beneath the herringbone lining of her coat.

So she _was_ a witch. Not that Colette had ever doubted it—she had somehow just _known_.

"Ted's Mum still giving you the run-around?"

"Oh, I'm sure she'll warm up to me after a few more _decades_ of being married to her son." She rested her chin on the palm of her hand and swirled the warm beer in front of her, addressing Colette directly.

"East-enders are a proud race of beings, Colette. If you ever should perchance to meet one, you must learn to coarsen your manners. They're all terrible snobs. My mother-in-law calls me the 'disgraced daughter of an earl' behind my back." Her eyes glittered over the glass. "If only she knew the truth."

Andi took another long drag from the cigarette—a restorative measure, if her long sigh of relief was anything to judge by.

"Daddy wouldn't like it, if he knew you were doing that," a small voice said, from somewhere beneath their feet. "I could tell him."

Colette started and jumped in her seat. Mrs. Tonks only gave the gap between the table-top and floor a small, withering glance.

"Nymphadora, how many times have I told you? It's bad manners to blackmail your own mother from down on the floor." She tapped her cigarette against the ashtray. "If you _must_ , sit on a chair in front of her with your back straight and tall."

Incredulous, Sirius pulled out his chair.

"How long has little Dora been down there?"

Sirius stuck his head underneath the table—there was a cry of surprise and a youthful oath.

"Did I not mention I was bringing her?" An ironical smile flitted across Mrs. Tonks' face. "Of course, I _would_ introduce you, Colette, but I'm afraid my daughter's not speaking to me at the moment."

Sirius laughed and pulled his head back out.

"What've you done to warrant the silent treatment?"

"Oh, just made her wear a knit cap over her head when we're out in public. I'm not modifying the memory of every greengrocer my daughter decides to change her plait bright turquoise in front of."

Mrs. Tonks, her brown eyes dancing with maternal mischief, explained, over Sirius's laughs, about her daughter's rather unique gift for at-will magical transformation, and how it proved a difficult situation when raising a little girl who refused to behave herself.

"It's all Ted's—that's my husband—it's all _his_ fault. I'd have never gotten away with half the things he lets her do, talking back, and the like. Cheeky monkey of a girl." She let out a maternal sigh. "She knows _perfectly_ well she's not to do magic out in public, but she can't resist the urge to show it off."

Colette's cheek dimpled—Mrs. Tonks was gazing in the direction of her feet with an exasperated fondness that belied her irritation somewhat.

"Why do you take her out in plain sight of Muggles, then?"

"Well, they are rather hard to avoid." The older woman laughed, wryly. "There's so many of them."

"My _maman s_ ays that's what wands were invented for."

Mrs. Tonks bit back a somewhat amused smile and shared a look with Sirius, who suddenly had grown very interested in examining the bottom of an empty glass.

"Your _maman_ does have a point, but in _my_ case, it might be be more trouble than it's worth." She sipped her beer thoughtfully. "Not to mention the awkwardness of it."

"But why should it be—"

A loud clearing of the throat cut her off, and when Colette caught sight of Sirius's expression she fell silent. It certainly hadn't been difficult for _her_ to avoid them, growing up. Her parents treated most Muggles like everyone they knew did—as beneath their notice at best, unwanted pests at worst.

Sirius was looking at her as if she'd committed an awful social gaffe by saying as much.

Mrs. Tonks didn't seem to notice or care about the younger girl's _faux pas_ , however. She drained the last of her glass of beer with a single jerk of the wrist, then flagged down the waiter to take their order for lunch (" _I'm starving, personally."_ )

"Dora's gotten so big." Sirius remarked, taking the menu from the man and handing one to Colette. "She said she didn't know who I was. She doesn't remember me."

Mrs. Tonks took another puff from her cigarette.

"Well, it's been over a year, hasn't it?"

He slouched back in his chair.

"Closer to two, actually."

An odd, uncomfortable silence followed—one that Colette felt, instinctively, she had to fill.

"Such a long time!" The girl pushed his arm, teasingly. "Why don't you see one another more often?"

Sirius shifted uncomfortably in his chair—but the young wife and mother across from him, in contrast, grew very still.

"It's just such an—odd time," he said, drumming his fingers against the table top—a nervous habit, Colette had noticed. He tended to fidget when he felt boxed in, for he was all tightly coiled energy, ready to spring at a moment's notice. "And we've both been so—busy."

Sirius sounded apologetic and defensive, though Mrs. Tonks only shrugged and offered another small, sad smile.

"The current atmosphere does not lend itself to paying calls and socializing, somehow."

"Doesn't it?" The French witch laughed. "That seems to be all I've done since I arrived in England."

One of Mrs. Tonks's eyebrows quirked up, and she gave Sirius another furtive look. He avoided returning it.

"You must keep very brave company, Miss Battancourt."

Colette's cheery smile faltered.

"I—am not sure I understand."

"Obviously not."

"— _Fish and chips_ , Colette," Sirius loudly interrupted them. "That's what you need. If only the damn waiter would come back here."

He banged his glass loudly on the table. Both women turned to look at him—as well as a crowd of middle-aged roustabouts at the table next to theirs.

"You can't—" Sirius sheepishly tossed his menu on the table. "You can't…come to Britain and not have fish and chips. This is a part of your education."

"You're teaching her about pub food, Sirius?"

He crossed his arms and forced a grin. Both women exchanged a look of confusion—though Mrs. Tonks' was cannier than Colette's by far.

"Among...other things."

"Curiouser and curiouser." She took one final drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out on the ash tray. "This is all very unlike you—why so jumpy? I'd almost think you're ashamed of me."

"That's not it," Sirius snapped, immediately defensive. "Don't put words in my—I'm not—that's not what I'm saying."

She arched one of her eyebrows elegantly.

"Then what _are_ you saying? You've certainly become a man of mystery, since last time I saw you. Why else would you tell me in that letter this morning not to mention anything about the deep, dark past we share?" She threw a opaque smile in Colette's direction. "And he's told _you_ not to ask, I presume."

A flash of anger and frustration crossed Sirius's face—but he did not deny it. He stubbed his cigarette out with such force that he scorched his fingers in the ashtray.

"Don't make this into something it's not."

"As opposed to making it something it is?" Mrs. Tonks looked more amused than offended—she seemed to Colette, from their short acquaintance, to be a woman not easily offended. "I guess I'm just another skeleton in your closet."

His head jerked in Colette's direction—then mechanically he forced himself to look Mrs. Tonks straight in the eye. To do so and remain polite and calm, without raising his voice, seemed to require almost physical effort from Sirius.

"I only thought—" Sirius sat up straighter in his chair and forced another smile. "—That we'd all have a better time if we talked about the present and the future. Is that _so_ wrong of me? After all—" He gave Colette an encouraging smile. "We've everything in the world to look forward to."

Mrs. Tonks chuckled to herself.

"And everything in the world to forget." She shrugged, carelessly—as if was of no consequence at all. "I sometimes forget just how young you are, Sirius."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know precisely."

He stared at her, opened his mouth, as if to say something in defiance—then caught Colette's eye, and, in a manner most unlike himself—held back.

This exchange went unremarked upon by Mrs. Tonks—though Colette detected, in the flickering of her eyes, some degree of understanding.

Andi Tonks was obviously not one to nurse resentment, and this moment of odd tension between she and Sirius passed quickly enough ( _"I cannot stay angry with you, S. You're too irritating in this state." "Much obliged, I'm sure."_ ) It was followed by a friendly, familiar back-and-forth, their conversation like a game of badminton, where each partner knows the other so well as to make the exchange of the birdie across the net a lazy, languid affair.

Colette hovered on the edge of the conversation, keenly aware that there was some critical aspect of the unsaid that was beyond her understanding. Sirius had admitted as much to her—and said outright he was keeping the truth hidden, which he had clearly done for the reason of rightly judging her character. That comment was the only thing keeping her from asking how it was they had met, how they knew each other, for she was dying to know—and certain it must be something obvious she had overlooked. Every once and a while Sirius would glance over at her, some question in his look or manner, and she thought she caught a glimpse of whatever hidden communication he meant for her to receive.

At the mention of luncheon, Little Dora poked her head out from under the table.

"Can _I_ have fish and chips, Mummy?"

"That depends," her mother said, slyly. "Are you going to be a good girl—or a little _beast_?"

In response, Dora's button nose grew to a length of Pinnoccio-like proportions. Sirius, Colette and the her mother all laughed.

"I'll take that as a no." Mrs. Tonks looked up from her little girl at the young couple across from her, both fit to burst with laughter—and her expression softened.

"Let's have some lunch, and the two of you can tell us all about your adventures this morning."

By the time their three orders of fish and chips (and one Shepard's pie, for Sirius had partaken of the famous English dish the day before yesterday and was quite sick of it at present) Colette had almost entirely forgotten those first awkward exchanges between the two.

They spent most of the meal talking in earnest of Colette's visit to Britain. Mother and child were an appreciative audience to Colette's enthusiastic recounting of Sirius studiously avoided all mentions of his family—it would almost have been impressive if Colette hadn't the sense that Mrs. Tonks was well aware of it. She was fast getting used to deceit herself, but Colette was too caught up in the simple joy of being around him and spending time together to care.

"I'm telling you, Colette—she doesn't believe it, Andi—I'm telling you, it's one of the most marvelous innovations."

They had spent a good ten minutes arguing about telephones, and whether they were better or worse than magical communication devices.

"They certainly leave less of a mess than owls," Mrs. Tonks said, breezily. "But then anyone can ring you up whenever. Bit of a bother."

"At least the phone doesn't peck at your fingers for not picking it up," Sirius muttered, darkly. "And it's faster."

"It's less traditional."

" _Sucks_ to tradition."

Colette enjoyed playing up her own skepticism of these devices, if only to tease Sirius—and by the end of their debate he proclaimed that he would go find the nearest pay phone and call the pub, after which the bartender would summon her over to take the call, and the telephone's superiority would be proven to her.

He headed off to the bar, determined, leaving the two women and little girl alone. In Sirius's absence, Miss Battancourt felt her natural shyness around strangers return, and she busied herself with eating her food, which had, in her excitement, been mostly untouched.

The fish and chips were greasy and delicious.

"Good, isn't it?" Mrs. Tonks asked Colette, as she was cutting into ladylike portions each and every piping-hot chip. "I always come to this place when I'm in London—I turned Sirius onto it. My mother and father-in-law actually met here, would you believe it?"

Colette choked on a bit of fried cod.

" _Here_?" the girl repeated, astonished. "How—what a strange place to meet."

Mrs. Tonks smiled, knowingly.

"For a witch and wizard it would be." Colette's eyes widened. "Not for them. She was a waitress here, and my father-in-law was one of the masons repairing the building."

She took a sip from her beer and watched the blush creep across Colette's face.

"I believe I've shocked you."

"Of course you haven't," Colette stammered. "I'm—not shocked easily."

"No, you couldn't be, could you?" Mrs. Tonks posited, rhetorically. "Not with Sirius as a friend."

It was the way the woman across from her smiled—that was what triggered the memory. Afterwards she would never quite be able to say why that look and those words were the reason she realized.

 _"_ _Oh, what was the last thing I was to tell you? I don't know_ where _my head is."_

 _The girl looked up from her notebook. She had been trying to pay attention to her great-aunt's list of etiquette and protocols for over a quarter of an hour. Would they get a lecture every time they went somewhere to eat, or was it just at her new friend Narcissa's parents' house?_

 _"_ _You have given me so many things to remember."_

 _"_ _Well, this is something you have to forget."_

Little Dora looked between the adults, confused as to the nature of their conversation.

"Do you _really_ not know about the telephone?" the little girl demanded. "You've never used one?"

Colette shook her head.

"Then how do you call your family?"

Mrs. Tonks gave her daughter a wry look.

"Only Muggles use the telephone, darling. Miss Battancourt doesn't have any Muggle family to call."

"There are people who don't have Muggles in their family?"

"Yes, Nymphadora. Many of them."

 _"_ _You've probably heard—but then you were so young." Eugenie clucked her tongue. "There was another daughter."_

 _"_ _Narcissa has_ two _sisters?"_

 _"_ _Oh yes—it was a terrible scandal. She ran away. All over the papers. They tried to hush it up, of course, but you never can with these things…"_

"Well, that's funny. We _only_ have Muggle family."

"That's not, strictly speaking, true, Dora." She downed the last of her drink, letting the glass fall to the. "It's just none of the rest are likely to call us, by telephone or anything else."

 _"_ _What did she do?" Colette shut her notebook—eager for this tantalizing bit of gossip. How interesting other peoples' lives were. How scandalous! "Why did she run away?"_

 _"Never you mind what she did. It's too dreadful to even speak of. She's disowned and you're never to bring her up in mixed company."_

 _Colette pouted. One could hardly have brought up what one didn't know in the first place! And now that she knew she was curious._

 _Everyone else had more interesting lives than hers._

"But why not? Why shouldn't they talk to us, Mummy?"

"We've been over this." Mrs. Tonks sighed. "I'll explain it all to you when you're older."

 _"_ _What was her name, at least?"_

 _"_ _Oh, I don't know_ — _I can't remember. Some planet or constellation. All those Blacks are."_

 _"_ _Narcissa's not."_

"Why can't you explain it to me now?"

"Because you wouldn't understand."

 _"_ _I suppose that's true. But there's always exceptions in any family."_

 _It figured that the one time Eugenie had said something interesting she regretted doing so._

 _"_ _Did you ever meet her?"_

 _"_ _I suppose so, once upon a time. Oh, let's stop talking about it! It's too ghastly."_

"Is someone angry with me?" Dora asked, her heart-shaped face crinkled with confusion.

"Of course not. You haven't done anything wrong. It's Mummy they're angry with."

 _Since her aunt wouldn't tell her the real reason, Colette tried to imagine anything being worth getting disowned over, and ever speaking to your family again. She couldn't think of one._

 _Poor Narcissa! How shameful to have_ such _a sister that one's friends had to be warned about her._

"What did you do?"

 _It was when they both had wrapped themselves in their cloaks and had one foot out the door that the thought struck Eugenie, as they so often did._

 _"Oh, I remember it, now! It's been on the tip of my tongue for a quarter of an hour. Silly thing. How did I forget something so_ grand? _"_

 _"What has?" Colette asked, twirling a curl around her finger. She hoped Narcissa would invite them to some more parties this trip_ — _then she wouldn't have to keep pretending to find her aunt's company interesting._ _"What did you think of?"_

Mrs. Tonks looked up into Colette's eyes, and in that face she saw a spark of defiant strength—followed just as quickly by an almost aching sadness.

"Something they couldn't bring themselves to forgive," she said, softly. "That's all. Put it out of your head, darling. Goodness knows I have."

 _"The name—of the other one. Can't imagine saddling a child with it. It's as if they knew she was born under a bad star."_

It was in the way she held her head—her turns of phrase—that breezy elegance which had seemed so oddly familiar to Colette, far more than in her looks. What she saw now could not be unseen.

 _"What was it?"_

She heard the distant sound of Sirius approach the table—of Dora squealing that she was bored, and Mrs. Tonks asking, in that calm way she had, if he would be so good as to take her daughter out for a walk, while he was looking for his elusive telephone booth.

"And then I can at _last_ get your Colette alone, and find out how awful you've been to her, really."

"As if! She'll only tell you nice things about me, won't you?"

Colette was in such a daze that she didn't even think to try to warn him of the danger.

 _"Andromeda."_

* * *

 **Happy Easter! Please leave a review if you enjoyed. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.**


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